Upload 118 files

Data/get_video_link.py

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+import os
+import requests
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+from Data.new_video_added import get_new_video_url
+from datetime import datetime
+import json
+from pathlib import Path
+load_dotenv()
+
+api_key = os.getenv('API_KEY')
+CURRENT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
+BASE_URL = "https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3"
+BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
+channel = "https://www.youtube.com/@hubermanlab/videos"
+new_video_added = False
+# video_links_folder_name = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "videolinks")
+PROJECT_ROOT = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent
+# print("THIS IS BASE DIR:", BASE_DIR)
+# print("THIS is current dir:", CURRENT_DIR)
+# video_links_folder_name = os.path.join(CURRENT_DIR, "videolinks")
+video_links_folder_name = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "Data", "video_links")
+
+def ensure_directories():
+    if not os.path.exists(video_links_folder_name):
+        os.makedirs(video_links_folder_name)
+        print(f"Directory {video_links_folder_name} created")
+
+
+def get_chanel_id(chanel_name):
+    url = f"{BASE_URL}/search"
+    params = {
+        "part": "snippet",
+        "q": chanel_name,
+        "type": "channel",
+        "key": api_key
+    }
+    response = requests.get(url, params)
+    response_data = response.json()
+    if "items" in response_data and len(response_data["items"]) > 0:
+        return response_data["items"][0]["snippet"]["channelId"]
+    else:
+        return None
+
+
+def get_video_links(channel_id):
+    url = f"{BASE_URL}/search"
+    video_links = []
+    next_page_token = None
+
+    while True:
+        params = {
+            "part": "snippet",
+            "channelId": channel_id,
+            "maxResults": 50,
+            "type": "video",
+            "key": api_key,
+        }
+        if next_page_token:
+            params["pageToken"] = next_page_token
+
+        response = requests.get(url, params=params)
+        response_data = response.json()
+
+        if "items" not in response_data:
+            break
+
+        for item in response_data["items"]:
+            video_id = item["id"]["videoId"]
+            video_links.append(f"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v={video_id}")
+
+        next_page_token = response_data.get("nextPageToken")
+        if not next_page_token:
+            break
+
+    return video_links
+
+
+def save_video_links(video_links):
+    if not os.path.exists(video_links_folder_name):
+        os.makedirs(video_links_folder_name)
+    timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")
+    filename = f"video_links_{timestamp}.json"
+    filepath = os.path.join(video_links_folder_name, filename)
+    with open(filepath, 'w') as file:
+        json.dump(video_links, file)
+    print(f"{len(video_links)} The video links is saved successfully to {filename}")
+
+
+def load_video_links():
+    """
+    Load the most recent video links file based on timestamp in the filename.
+    """
+    # List all files in the current directory
+    if not os.path.exists(video_links_folder_name):
+        print(f"{video_links_folder_name} does not exits")
+    files = [f for f in os.listdir(video_links_folder_name) if f.startswith("video_links_") and f.endswith(".json")]
+
+    if not files:
+        print("No video links file found.")
+        return []
+
+    # Sort files by the timestamp in their names (descending)
+    files.sort(key=lambda x: datetime.strptime(x[len("video_links_"):-len(".json")], "%Y%m%d%H%M%S"), reverse=True)
+
+    # Load the most recent file
+    latest_file = files[0]
+    filepath = os.path.join(video_links_folder_name, latest_file)
+    try:
+        with open(filepath, 'r') as file:
+            video_links = json.load(file)
+            print(f"{len(video_links)} video links loaded successfully from {latest_file}.")
+            return video_links
+    except Exception as e:
+        print(f"Error loading {latest_file}: {e}")
+        return []
+
+
+def video_links_main():
+    ensure_directories()
+    video_links = load_video_links()
+    if video_links:
+        print(f"Using {len(video_links)} saved video links")
+    else:
+        channel_name = input("Enter the YouTube channel name: ")
+        channel_id = get_chanel_id(channel_name)
+
+        if channel_id:
+            print(f"Fetching videos for channel: {channel_name} (ID: {channel_id})")
+            video_links = get_video_links(channel_id)
+            save_video_links(video_links)
+        else:
+            print("Failed to fetch video links")
+    # for link in video_links:
+    #     # print(link)
+    new_video_url = get_new_video_url(channel)
+    # new_video_url = new_video_url[:3]
+    new_videos = [url for url in new_video_url if url not in video_links]
+
+    if new_videos:
+        print(f"{len(new_videos)} new video founds")
+        video_links.extend(new_videos)
+        save_video_links(video_links)
+        new_video_added = True
+    else:
+        print("No new video founds")
+        new_video_added = False
+    # print(new_video_added)
+    return video_links, new_video_added, new_videos
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    video_links_main()

Data/new_video_added.py

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+import requests
+import re
+
+
+
+def get_new_video_url(channel):
+    """
+    Fetch all video URLs from the given YouTube channel page.
+    """
+    try:
+        html = requests.get(channel).text
+        # Extract all video IDs from the HTML
+        video_ids = re.findall(r'(?<="videoId":").*?(?=")', html)
+        video_urls = [f"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v={video_id}" for video_id in video_ids]
+
+        # Remove duplicates while preserving order
+        video_urls = list(dict.fromkeys(video_urls))
+        print(f"Fetched {len(video_urls)} video URLs from the channel.")
+        return video_urls
+    except Exception as e:
+        print(f"Error fetching video URLs: {e}")
+        return []

Data/transcripts/0Dtt95_xabw_20241225194252.txt

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+So it's very clear that smoking,
+vaping, dipping or snuffing
+is bad for skin appearance and health.
+Bad, bad, bad.
+Every dermatologist said this.
+Why?
+Well, with smoking, you
+can imagine why, okay?
+A lot of carcinogens
+and toxic end products
+generated from smoking,
+even from vaping.
+Yes, even from vaping,
+it will make your skin
+age faster, that's clear.
+But it's also the substance itself.
+Why all of those things,
+in addition to increasing inflammation,
+nicotine itself is a vasoconstrictor,
+so you're doing the exact
+opposite of what you want
+when it comes to skin
+health and appearance.
+And that's why people
+take things like BPC-157,
+that's why people take nicotinamide,
+that's why people are trying to improve
+the hydration status of their skin.
+So if you're somebody
+that's vaping nicotine,
+or even taking nicotine
+in some other form,
+pouch or smoking nicotine,
+and you're interested in
+having youthful-appearing skin,
+you are really shooting yourself
+in the, I don't know, face?

Data/transcripts/1SXDXdngX2M_20241225194316.txt

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+A lot of people think that
+the key to feeling better
+is to vent your emotions.
+There's research on this.
+Venting is good for strengthening
+bonds between people.
+It's good to know that, you
+know, we're buddies now.
+I could call you up if I'm struggling.
+You're going to listen to
+me and empathize with me.
+That's great for our relationship,
+but if all you do is just
+validate what I'm going through
+and you don't take the next step
+to additionally help me
+look at that bigger picture
+and problem solve, I
+leave the conversation
+feeling really good about
+my relationship with you,
+but the problem is still there.
+So just venting ends up leading
+to what we call co-rumination,
+which can be pretty harmful.
+The people on my Chatter Advisory Board,
+they know to first
+validate, empathize with me,
+learn about what I'm going through.
+They've got my back.
+They communicate that powerfully,
+but then once they do that,
+they start working with me
+to broaden the perspective,
+to try to think through that problem,
+which I'm having
+difficulty doing sometimes
+when the chatter is really, really loud
+and you know, typically
+when I get to that stage,
+I'm in pretty good shape.

Data/transcripts/2Ds1m5gflCI_20241225194849.txt

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+- Welcome to The Huberman Lab Podcast,
+where we discuss science
+and science based tools for everyday life.
+I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a Professor of
+Neurobiology and Ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+Recently, I had the pleasure
+of hosting two live events:
+one in Seattle, Washington
+and one in Portland, Oregon,
+both entitled, "The Brain Body Contract,"
+where I discussed science
+and science related tools
+for mental health, physical
+health, and performance.
+My favorite part of each
+evening, however, was the
+question and answer period
+that followed the lecture.
+I love the question and answer period
+because it gives me an opportunity
+to hear directly from the audience
+to what they want to know most,
+and indeed to get into a bit of dialogue
+so we really clarify
+what are the underlying
+mechanisms of particular tools,
+how best to use the tools for
+things like focus and sleep,
+we also touched on some things related to
+mental health and physical health.
+It was a delight for me
+and I like to think that
+the audience learned a lot.
+I know that many of you weren't
+able to attend those events,
+but we wanted to make the
+information available to you.
+So what follows this
+is a recording of the
+question and answer period,
+from the lecture in Seattle, Washington.
+I hope you'll find it
+to be both interesting and informative.
+I'd also like to thank our
+sponsors of these live events.
+The first is Momentous supplements,
+which is our partner with
+The Huberman Lab Podcast,
+providing supplements that
+are the very highest quality,
+that ship international,
+and that are arranged
+in dosages and single
+ingredient formulations
+that make it possible for you
+to develop the optimal
+supplement strategy for you.
+And I'd also like to
+thank our other sponsor,
+which is InsideTracker,
+which provides blood tests and DNA tests
+so you can monitor
+your immediate and
+long-term health progress.
+I'd also like to announce
+that there are two, new
+live events scheduled.
+The first one is going
+to take place Sunday,
+October 16th at The Wiltern
+theater in Los Angeles.
+The other live event will
+take place Wednesday,
+November 9th at the Beacon
+Theatre in New York City.
+Tickets to both of those
+events are now available
+online at hubermanlab.com/tour;
+that's hubermanlab.com/tour.
+I do hope that you learn from an enjoy
+the recording of the
+question and answer period
+that follows this, and last,
+but certainly not least,
+thank you for your interest in science.
+[upbeat music plays]
+"What is your most used protocol?"
+I'm assuming that you mean the
+protocol that I use the most.
+I genuinely do the
+morning sunlight viewing.
+And this evening I went
+and looked at the sunset,
+every single evening,
+and I absolutely do 10 to 30 minutes
+of some Non-Sleep Deep Rest
+protocol, every single day,
+every single day!
+The reason I called it Non-Sleep Deep Rest
+is because while I love
+the classic traditions of,
+and things like Yoga Nidra,
+my fear was that if I
+called things Yoga Nidra,
+that people would get spooked.
+But I also have to say
+that I rather loathe
+the fact that scientists
+use so many fancy terms,
+that it also vaults information
+from the very people that fund the work.
+So I have a kind of an ax to grind
+with the scientific community too.
+So Non-Sleep Deep Rest was my attempt
+to kind of put my arms around
+a number of different things
+like Yoga Nidra, which I
+have great reverence for,
+and other tools like that.
+I do that usually in the early afternoon,
+or if I wake up first thing in the morning
+and I haven't slept
+enough, or not that well,
+I'll do 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra
+and I feel terrific after that.
+I'll just mention a brief anecdote.
+I learned about Yoga Nidra
+while researching a book
+that I never wrote, that may
+or may not ever be published.
+I went and spent a week
+in a trauma center and addiction
+treatment center in Florida
+and saw some amazing work,
+of some amazing people,
+and some amazing transformations
+and it was a big part
+of their daily routine,
+for these people to do Yoga
+Nidra and Non-Sleep Deep Rest
+and I thought they're
+really onto something here.
+So almost religiously for me,
+every day, 10 to 30 minutes.
+Not that it matters,
+but the CEO of Google's really into NSDR.
+I don't know him,
+but he's written about
+that a number of times.
+"In Seattle, sunrise varies
+from 4:30 AM to 9:00 AM,
+depending on season,
+are you recommending to vary
+your wake-up/outside
+time with the seasons?"
+Somewhat.
+You know, you don't need to
+see the sun cross the horizon.
+That would be great,
+but not everyone can wake up with the sun.
+You want to get so-called
+low solar angle sunlight.
+Why?
+'Cause of that yellow-blue contrast
+that we talked about before.
+Many people wake up before the sun is out.
+If that case, if you want to be awake,
+turn on as many bright lights as you can.
+Up here, I don't know, does anyone here,
+you don't have to admit
+this if you don't want to,
+but maybe nod or raise your hand
+if you're comfortable with doing that.
+In the winter you feel less well,
+or typically in the transition,
+yeah, it's huge up here.
+[audience laughing]
+It's really, it's amazing.
+And then when you're on campus
+or that's where I've spent time
+and you see Rainier and it's like,
+the blossoms are out
+and you feel almost high
+because that's dopamine, you know,
+animals that have white
+pelage in the winter,
+and then it turns dark in
+the summer and spring months
+that pathway, the melanin
+pathway, is from tyrosine,
+which is the precursor to dopamine
+and also to melanin production in the fur.
+So the whole system is linked.
+It's not rigged, it's linked.
+So what do I suggest?
+I suggest in the winter months,
+getting 30 minutes of sunlight viewing.
+I know it's a lot,
+but it's much better than
+feeling lousy all day.
+And then the real key in the winter
+is to try and catch some
+sunlight before it goes down.
+If you're indoors and it goes down
+and then you go outside and it's dark,
+your brain and body
+don't really know where they are in time.
+And then you flip on "Ozark"
+and you're watching "Ozark",
+and then you really don't
+know where you are in time.
+I have one more episode.
+Don't tell me what happened.
+That show is, when I was a postdoc,
+I used to recommend, "The
+Wire," to my competitors.
+[audience laughing]
+True.
+"I go to sleep fired up,
+ready and excited to do whatever it takes.
+When I wake up, that drive is depleted.
+Why, and what can I do?"
+Interesting.
+Have not heard that one before,
+but if I were to venture
+a guess, you know,
+we didn't spend much time tonight
+talking about the
+autonomic nervous system,
+this kind of seesaw that
+takes us from very alert,
+potentially panicked, but
+to very, very deep sleep;
+even, you know, God
+forbid we go into a coma.
+It's 'cause the
+parasympathetic nervous system
+is overactive relative to the
+sympathetic nervous system;
+the seesaw of autonomic function.
+You may be sleeping very, very deeply.
+And when you are in deep, deep rest,
+the last thing you want to do
+is get into that forward center of mass
+thinking, planning, predicting, right?
+In, you know, again in Yoga Nidra again,
+Non-Sleep Deep Rest,
+there's this common theme in the script
+of going from thinking
+and doing and predicting
+to being and feeling, they say.
+And I'm not making fun of them
+as the moment I hear that,
+I go, "Oh, just I want to be and feel."
+What are you doing?
+You're actually just
+moving into sensation,
+but no planning, right?
+There's nothing mysterious about it.
+Sensation, but no planning.
+Now in sleep,
+a very deeply parasympathetic
+sleep state, what's happening?
+You actually, that visual aperture
+is actually so big, you're
+not in panoramic vision,
+your eyes are actually closed.
+Space and time are from
+past, present, and future
+are invited into your thinking.
+You're in a deep, deep state of relaxation
+and it may be, Dustin,
+that when you're waking up,
+you're having a hard time
+transitioning out of that
+because you're sleeping so deeply.
+You may be waking up mid-sleep cycle.
+Many people find it useful to set an alarm
+so that they wake up
+at the end of a 90 minute
+so-called ultradian cycle.
+There's some sleep apps
+that do this on the phone.
+I can't recall their names,
+but so rather than sleeping seven hours,
+you might be better off sleeping six
+or seven and a half hours, right?
+Waking up at the end of one
+of these 90 minute cycles.
+Try that.
+That would be consistent
+with what we know about the biology.
+But I think it's common to,
+if you sleep very deeply,
+to wake up and not necessarily
+want to spring out of bed.
+I've heard of these people
+that just want to spring out
+of bed and attack the day;
+Jocko Willink, 4:30 in the morning,
+his Casio phone, and his watch.
+I'm seeing his watch when,
+and it's like eight for me.
+I'm like, "Wow," like again,
+these people are amazing.
+I must be doing something wrong.
+But these are, you know,
+I don't wake up that way.
+You know?
+Like Tiger, I'm like, I
+want water, I want sunlight,
+90 minutes later I want caffeine.
+Yeah.
+"What are some of your favorite books
+that have had the biggest impact on you?"
+Kyle G, thank you, Kyle.
+Gosh, so many!
+You know, for non-fiction, well,
+Oliver Sack's autobiography,
+"On the Move,"
+had a profound impact on me.
+You know, people hated him?
+The scientific community
+tried to kick him out.
+They said horrible things about him;
+created all sorts of scandals.
+It wasn't until "Awakenings"
+became a blockbuster movie
+that suddenly he got
+appointments at NYU and Columbia.
+Ha!
+Then now they wanted him
+back; the revered neurologist.
+Like incredible, right?
+But he was also a real seeker
+in the cuttlefish thing.
+And he had a lot of
+internal struggles too,
+some of which I relate
+to, some of which I don't.
+Actually, I've been in touch
+with his former partner
+because I actually moved to
+Topanga Canyon for a short while
+just 'cause Oliver lived there.
+I thought, "If I go there, I'll
+actually finish this book."
+Guess what?
+Just moving someplace doesn't
+allow you to finish a book.
+He lived in Topanga so I
+was like, "That's the key."
+It didn't work.
+And people were wondering why
+I was hanging around
+their house all the time
+'cause it was Oliver's former home.
+So that's an amazing book,
+and tells you my obsessive nature.
+The other books that have had
+a profound influence on me,
+I would say in the non-fiction realm,
+well I learned how to make a decent steak
+and a few other simple recipes, not well,
+from Tim Ferris's book,
+"The Four Hour Chef,"
+'cause I really needed help.
+That was a fun one.
+I like Robert Greene's book, "Mastery,"
+because I've had amazing mentors
+and that book is all about finding mentors
+and assigning mentors to you,
+even if you don't know them.
+And as you can tell from
+my stories about Oliver,
+who I never met, and a few other folks,
+that I've just decided
+that they don't know it,
+but I'm mentoring them,
+that they're mentoring me, excuse me,
+that book was really important for me.
+And that mentor-mentee relationships
+always involve a breakup,
+either by death, or by
+decision, or by consequence,
+to your circumstance rather.
+There's, something happens,
+and they're supposed to break.
+You're not supposed to
+apprentice with somebody forever.
+That was an interesting book for me.
+I would say in the fiction realm,
+[Andrew sighs]
+I would say in the fiction
+realm, it's all childhood books
+'cause it's been a long time
+since I've read fiction.
+I read a lot of poetry. I'm
+a big Wendell Berry fan.
+I like poetry because poetry to me is,
+is like the subconscious, it,
+the structure is all messed up
+and you think you understand
+what they're talking about
+but you don't really know.
+And so it always feels
+important and consequential,
+even though, you know, it's
+your own interpretation.
+And then I love the
+psychologists. I love Jung.
+I love Erikson.
+I love the psychologists
+and could read endlessly
+about the early days of attachment theory
+and things like that
+because I find that
+stuff to be fascinating.
+So those books have been a lot of fun
+and I love picture books with animals.
+[audience laughing]
+And so if you can get a hold of
+Joel Sartore's Instagram
+account, the "Photo Ark,"
+he decided to take pictures
+of every animal on the planet,
+especially the ones that are endangered.
+He's a amazing photographer,
+but his books are even better
+so if you like animal books.
+"What excites you most
+about the future research
+of mental health treatment,
+particularly anxiety and depression?"
+Oi! Michael, thank you, Michael.
+Well there, I think that
+we're in an exciting time.
+I am, I'll just reveal my biases,
+I'm quite pessimistic at the idea
+that we're going to have
+better medication soon for most things.
+What I do think we are
+starting to approach
+is a time in which we understand
+how broad categories of drugs
+impact broad categories of chemicals,
+which kind of shift our mind
+in broad categories of directions.
+What does all that mean?
+I think we're starting to
+realize that because there are
+different receptors
+for all these chemicals
+all over the brain and body,
+that that side effect-less drug
+is unlikely to exist for mental health,
+but that the combination of,
+maybe some pharmacology,
+but especially behavioral
+tools, people actually learning
+how to drive this thing that
+we call our nervous system
+is potentially helpful,
+maybe very helpful.
+Now in cases like schizophrenia, autism,
+and I didn't put those next
+to one another for any reason
+by the way, OCD,
+eating disorders,
+and I'm very mindful of the fact that,
+you know, anorexia is
+the most lethal of all the
+psychiatric disorders, right?
+Amazing and sad fact.
+I think for those conditions,
+we are soon going to enter a time
+in which it's going to be
+combination behavioral,
+drug therapy, and yes,
+brain-machine interface.
+I don't mean putting chips
+down below the skull.
+I think there's going to be,
+and there are things happening now
+of people using devices
+like virtual reality,
+as well as transcranial
+magnetic stimulation,
+placing a magnet on a
+particular location on the head
+combined with a particular,
+maybe drugs, maybe psychedelics,
+maybe not, to enhance plasticity.
+I urge a vote for psychedelics
+and I want to make a serious
+point about psychedelics.
+Five years ago, when
+I, well, four years ago
+when I started doing a bit
+of public-facing stuff,
+I was absolutely terrified
+to say that word; terrified.
+I thought I'd lose my job.
+I really did. I thought,
+"Don't say psychedelics."
+And I'll be very honest, you know,
+I, for me,
+I think that the clinical data
+on MDMA and on psilocybin
+are very interesting, very interesting.
+I don't think they are
+the first and only pass
+at rewiring the brain,
+but it is clear that the brain
+can enter a state of
+heightened learning capacity,
+but it needs to be
+directed towards something.
+The goal of opening plasticity,
+just, it opens plasticity.
+That's not the goal.
+It's like running; the goal isn't running.
+The goal is to run in
+a particular direction.
+So what I think is really needed
+is to drive that plasticity
+in particular directions.
+And I would love to see more
+directed use of those in,
+of course, the safe clinical
+setting where it's appropriate.
+And a guest on the
+podcast, Matthew Johnson,
+who's at Johns Hopkins,
+I asked him, "What's the
+deal with the microdosing?"
+And you know what his answer
+was? I was very surprised.
+He said, "Macrodose."
+And I thought, okay, I'm
+not a guy who, you know,
+I'm not into, I'm not,
+I'm not a pushing this.
+I'm not a proponent. I said,
+"You're kidding me. Why?
+Why would you say this?"
+This guy runs an NIH funded lab
+at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
+I thought, "Why?"
+And he said,
+"Because the one session
+with a trained professional
+that's triggering rewiring plasticity,
+that's guided, is," as far
+as they know from the data,
+you can go back and listen
+to, these are his words,
+not mine, but he's the
+expert in this area,
+"are encouraging plasticity
+in a particular direction."
+And he thinks that that's far more useful
+than just kind of nudging
+the system a little bit
+without any particular goal or outcome.
+Very interesting, and very surprising.
+And again, a trained academic
+at one of the most elite
+institutions in the world.
+I think we're in very exciting
+times, for those compounds.
+And they're like,
+there are studies at
+Stanford and elsewhere
+on ketamine and other
+things, but it's early days.
+Young people should be very cautious,
+young, young people,
+and adults should be cautious,
+especially people with
+preexisting psychiatric issues
+and people who have a
+propensity for addiction
+although some of those compounds
+are being used to treat addiction.
+So I'd be an idiot and I would be lying,
+if I didn't say
+that it is a very exciting
+time for psychedelic therapies.
+[audience cheering and applauding]
+"Where do you see the biggest area?"
+and I've done only one clinical trial.
+True. I was a part I took
+part in one clinical trial.
+So I don't speak from a
+lot of experience there,
+just a little bit.
+I was a subject in that trial.
+"Where do you see the biggest area
+for performance enhancement
+within the elite athletes and operators
+that already hit marks of
+proper sleep and nutrition?"
+Meg Young, thanks for your question, Meg.
+Yeah, I think that, well, first of all,
+very few of them hit
+marks for proper sleep.
+But for those that do, so once
+you have your sleep dialed in
+and you got your nutrition dialed in,
+and the motivational component is there,
+I think where there's a lot
+of work still to be done
+and where people can really
+get outsized effects,
+is in this weird little
+cavern of human existence
+that we call creativity.
+And I didn't have time to
+talk about it tonight, but
+there's a very unique brain
+state that we call creativity,
+which is taking preexisting neural maps
+and starting to combine
+them in unique ways
+to create new ways of performance.
+Performance can be basically
+summarized in any domain
+as essentially four stages.
+You have unskilled, skilled, mastery,
+which is when the brain
+can generate movements
+or cognitive computations that are,
+create very predictable outcomes
+and then there's this fourth
+tier, this fourth layer,
+which is virtuosity.
+And virtuosity, by definition,
+means inviting back in a
+component of uncertainty.
+What this looks like in terms of operators
+or this looks like in terms of athletes,
+or even we can say musicians,
+or people who are in the cognitive fields,
+or poets, or writers,
+is what it means is introducing that
+uncertainty about what's
+going to happen next
+and the way to do that is
+to destabilize the system.
+In other words, to create states of mind
+in which there are literally
+sensory disruptions.
+It's like, like what I would
+like to see is more training
+in a kind of "funhouse of
+mirrors" type environment.
+That's when you start to see
+incredible performances emerge.
+And virtuosos invite in uncertainty,
+they actually don't know what
+they're going to do next.
+And so this becomes a little
+bit of a vague concept
+and what I'm about to tell you next
+might seem a little silly,
+but one of the best ways
+to access creative states
+is to, no surprise, use your visual system
+to view things that are
+highly unstable and uncertain.
+I don't just love fish tanks;
+I love staring at videos
+of aquariums in Tokyo,
+and actually watching the fish
+because it's completely unpredictable.
+There's some evidence that
+doing things like that
+or people would say,
+"Oh, I was in the shower,"
+or, "I took a walk in nature
+and then I had this idea."
+I actually don't think it
+was the walk or the shower,
+it's that nature is
+filled with unpredictable
+visual stimuli, auditory stimuli.
+When you can predict what's
+going to happen next,
+you have very little opportunity
+to uplevel your game so to speak.
+It's only by way of
+unpredictable sensory input
+that you can do that.
+So if you're a coach,
+or you're working with people
+who are very high level performers,
+do you want them to stand
+on one leg and spin around
+and then do what they're doing?
+Not necessarily.
+What you want to do
+is try and get them into brain states
+that are different than the
+brain states that they're in
+when they normally enter their practice.
+The liminal state between
+sleep and waking, excuse me,
+the liminal state between sleep and waking
+is a very powerful one
+for accessing creativity.
+Many people access ideas
+as they're waking up in the morning,
+they have great insights,
+other people while strolling in nature.
+I don't think it's the
+strolling or the waking up.
+I think it's the lack of,
+as we call it top-down
+regulation on rules.
+You are able to access
+combinations of neural maps
+that are unusual.
+So you can play with this a little bit.
+A lot of people throughout history
+have used compounds,
+drugs, to do this, right?
+Great writers would get
+drunk and then try and write
+or wake up and they would,
+the amount of self-abuse
+that people including
+athletes and creatives
+put themselves through to try and capture
+these windows of cognitive
+ability is pretty intense.
+And I don't think that's a good idea.
+I think one should be an explorer
+and try and find these cognitive states
+in ways that are non-destructive.
+I'm starting to sound like
+my mother, with all this.
+[audience laughing]
+Heel flips on lock. No kick flips.
+Next question.
+[audience laughing]
+[scattered applause]
+There's some skateboarders
+in the audience;
+my first non-biologic family.
+There's some amazing
+skateboarders in this audience
+and I'm not going to be the one
+doing a kick flip anytime soon,
+but they're great to have.
+One of the reasons we built the podcast
+with the help of the great Mike Blabac
+is because I learned a long time ago
+that if you want things done right,
+and you want to do them
+outside the lane lines,
+and you want to have control
+over how things come across,
+you do it with skateboarders,
+'cause I didn't come from a
+community where, you know,
+I didn't have parents at my sports games
+and things like that
+so, thanks to the
+skateboarders and the misfits
+and the those folks.
+"Do you have any tips on
+how to improve memory?"
+Yes, Ron Vered. Yes!
+Okay.
+This is a wild literature and I love it
+and it's changing the
+way that I do things.
+I thought that to remember things
+you're supposed to get
+really, really excited,
+really focused, and remember them.
+Guess what? That's not how you do it.
+There are data,
+and there are stories going
+back to medieval times
+that they used to teach kids things
+and then throw them in the river.
+There's a beautiful Annual
+Review of Neuroscience
+written by the late James McGaugh,
+a brilliant researcher who
+taught me that, in this review.
+And it turns out that if you
+want to remember something
+you want to spike adrenaline
+after you acquired that
+information, after!
+That means the double
+espresso and the ice bath
+after you study for
+math, immediately after.
+And you think about this, you know,
+that makes perfect sense, right?
+Think about the one trial learning
+that nobody wants to experience,
+which is a car accident
+or some traumatic thing.
+You didn't get the spike
+of adrenaline first.
+You got the spike of adrenaline after.
+So again, you know,
+I discourage the use
+of excessive stimulants
+or you know, anything like that.
+But if you're going to try
+and remember information,
+you need to get your brain and body
+into a high autonomic arousal state.
+Literally you need to deploy
+adrenaline into your system
+after you have made the attempt
+to learn some information.
+So much so that if you
+give people a beta blocker
+after learning emotional information,
+they don't learn it as well.
+Incredible, just incredible
+data in animals and humans.
+This is the beautiful work
+of Larry Cahill at UC Irvine
+and James McGaugh.
+So that's how I would focus
+on remembering things better.
+And it's also true that
+if you tell yourself
+that something's really important to you,
+you'll be able to learn it better.
+If you meet people and
+they tell you their name
+and you forget it two seconds later, well,
+you should probably be
+thinking, and now I do this,
+I meet people and I think,
+"Okay, what terrible
+thing did this person do?"
+Just try and spike my adrenaline
+or something like that.
+It's a terrible trick, but
+haven't figured out a better way,
+but that's actually one
+data-supported way to do that.
+Easily a dozen or more studies
+in humans on that very topic.
+"How do you manage
+social media addiction?"
+Paul.
+Oi, well we should be careful
+with the use of the word addiction
+because here, I think
+it's entirely appropriate.
+When you are engaging in
+a behavior over, and over. and over again,
+and you're thinking to yourself,
+"This isn't even that interesting,"
+you're officially addicted.
+That's the litmus test for addiction.
+Not, "This feels so good."
+People talk about the
+dopamine hits of social media.
+Those only come at the beginning,
+but then when you find yourself scrolling,
+you're like, "What am I doing?"
+Maybe it's that narrow visual aperture;
+you're a hypnotized chicken,
+but maybe also you are
+seeking more dopamine hits
+because guess what?
+That dopamine wave pool is depleted,
+at least for that activity.
+It is true that dopamine,
+you have a baseline and
+then you have peaks on,
+on that ride on that baseline.
+I do think that we can have
+dopamine for one behavior,
+and not for another,
+but it's a generalized phenomenon.
+So how do you manage it?
+You have to stop seeking
+within social media.
+And so I've taken on the
+practice of turning off my phone
+for a couple hours each day.
+It's incredibly hard.
+People get really upset too, by the way,
+cause if you haven't noticed
+these tethers that people expect.
+We recorded a podcast
+recently and it, so I,
+I don't want to go into
+too much depth now,
+about attachment and grief.
+And, you know, we all have a map now,
+you know, you understand
+what the maps are,
+of space, time, and a dimension called
+closeness to everyone that we know
+space, where they are,
+time, when they are,
+dead, alive, when will I
+see them again et cetera,
+and closeness.
+And the phone has allowed us to tap into
+space, time, and this closeness map,
+which define all our attachments,
+on a very regular basis.
+So you can understand why
+it's so valuable to people.
+You know, the plane lands
+and everyone's texting.
+The planes, take off, everyone's texting.
+It's like, "Where are you?"
+Well, the plane's in the air,
+there's this thing called flight tracker.
+No one cares about that anymore.
+You want to hear from the person.
+So I do think that,
+I used to do an every odd hour of the day
+my phone was off,
+and like half the relationships
+in my life disappeared.
+They couldn't talk, they
+couldn't tolerate it.
+I loved it, but I loved them too.
+So I would say take breaks.
+And I would say at least an hour.
+And if you find yourself excited
+to get back on the phone,
+that excitement, that
+is the dopamine system.
+So you can kind of learn
+where it is for you.
+But if you find yourself
+scrolling mindlessly
+and it's not doing anything for you,
+you are driving that wave pool
+down, down, down, down, down,
+so hopefully that analogy will help.
+It's weird to call myself Dr. Huberman.
+In my business if you refer to
+yourself in the third person,
+it means you're officially a narcissist.
+[audience laughing]
+So I'm just going to start with,
+"Were you nervous tonight and if so,
+what did you do to prepare?"
+Brianne, you saw my
+nervousness, didn't you?
+No, the, I asked myself that question.
+I was excited, and I think
+I'm good at lying to myself
+and telling myself that autonomic arousal
+that might be nervousness is excitement.
+But in truth, I wasn't, I
+was and am really excited
+to tell you all these
+stories and about biology.
+I know this might sound
+like a little bit of a line,
+but I actually don't feel myself as a,
+like a person when I do the
+podcast or I do this stuff.
+I took a walk before I got
+here and I have to be careful.
+There are only two
+topics that make me cry.
+One is talking about my bulldog.
+The other is talking
+about my graduate advisor.
+So I have to be very careful,
+but I took a walk and I
+imagined that they were here
+and, I know, and don't make me cry.
+Lex Friedman made me cry on a podcast
+and it was really unfair.
+And he was like digging and digging and
+there are a few people in the
+audience that know Costello.
+And it's like, you know,
+and I just kept thinking to
+myself before coming in here,
+like, you know, I love
+them and miss them and I,
+Costello would be entirely
+bored with this whole thing.
+So I distracted myself a
+bit and not so nervous.
+I do get nervous about
+things, sure, I'm human.
+But when it comes to biology,
+I think I still feel like that little kid
+who just wants to tell you
+all this stuff, you know, so,
+you know, I can't help it.
+"Is learning from failure
+equal to learning from success?
+Is one more efficient than the other?"
+Rachel, thanks for your question.
+Well, on a trial-by-trial basis,
+we know that when you fail at an attempt,
+on the next attempt,
+your forebrain is in a
+position to engage better.
+And this makes total sense, right?
+You feel that frustration [alarm buzzer]
+and you want to get the next one, right?
+Well, you're harboring,
+or I should say funneling
+more neural resources,
+your focus, that aperture tightens.
+Now you have to be mindful of that too,
+because when you have a
+failure and then you're like,
+you're going to hit the bulls.
+I'm thinking about a dart board,
+'cause I'm terrible at darts, you know,
+sober I'm terrible at darts.
+I don't even drink.
+So that next trial,
+part of the problem is,
+is that focus can narrow
+so much that you can start
+to lose access to information
+that might help you.
+If you were just to relax a little bit
+and dilate that focus a
+little bit, but in general,
+on a trial-by-trial basis focus is the cue
+that your nervous system
+is going to be positioned
+to learn better on the next trial.
+Now in terms of life experiences, gosh,
+I wish for everyone fewer
+failures and more successes,
+but you know, failures keep you humble.
+And I've had a lot of 'em.
+I mean, if people ever
+wanted and they, you know,
+I'd be happy to tell you about, I mean,
+I've made a ton of mistakes
+in life, a ton of mistakes.
+Some of those were
+mistakes of persistence,
+like dumb decisions.
+I kept like, "It's going to
+change. It's going to change."
+And it's clearly never going to change.
+And then some were failures of misjudgment
+about other people or situations.
+And a lot of them were just plain failures
+like the experiment didn't work,
+or the, it just wasn't the right thing.
+And you try and reframe those.
+I do think that we owe it to ourselves
+and to the people that we know
+to try and generate
+some wins here and there
+and try and help other
+people generate wins.
+You know, in running a lab over the years
+and I still do,
+you realize that you want your
+students to publish a paper
+and feel that success pretty early
+so that they can experience,
+A, how much work it is
+so they pick problems wisely,
+but, B, so they can feel that,
+like, "Oh, I can do this."
+And I think that, you know,
+this gets into the psychological as well.
+I think that yes, failures
+help, but successes help.
+And there, I think, you know,
+I function best in a team.
+And I think that for those of you that are
+feel like you're fighting
+some challenge alone,
+I do think that there are
+great resources to be had
+in trying to access other, you know,
+other people as sources of support.
+I think that that's a great tool.
+There's this whole literature,
+scientific literature,
+around social connection
+and how that can help us
+reframe motivation and goals.
+Anyway, maybe that's a topic
+to expand on another time.
+But failure is important
+on a trial, trial by basis.
+People who
+don't experience enough wins
+for a long period of time,
+the brain is a prediction
+machine after all
+and they start to predict failure
+so takes a bit more work to
+wedge oneself out of that.
+"When are you going to
+start training jiu-jitsu?
+Lex made me ask."
+Ryan Flores.
+Okay. Here's the story with that.
+Lex said, "Do you want to try jiu-jitsu?"
+I said, "Sure."
+Lex said,
+"Okay, it'll be great to
+show people beginner's mind."
+I said, "Sure."
+We went and did a jiu-jitsu class.
+He was very nice; nice,
+nice, Russian, nice.
+Like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah."
+Then he puts it on the internet
+with me in a rear naked,
+him putting me in a rear naked choke,
+it was actually Lex Friedman
+choking out Andrew Huberman,
+There, I just talked about
+myself in the third person,
+dammit, edit that one.
+I have not had the time for jiu-jitsu.
+I like my ears the way they are, you know.
+Have you ever seen these
+people that do jiu-jitsu?
+Their ears literally look like
+stumps. No, I should do it.
+It looks like a great sport.
+And unlike the other sports
+I've been involved in my life,
+boxing, please don't do it.
+It's not healthy.
+Skateboarding and all this,
+you don't really damage
+your head doing jiu-jitsu.
+So no.
+I'm going to get you
+back for that one Lex.
+Okay.
+"Can you go through,"
+oh wow, John Edwards.
+There's a joke that my
+friends used to tell
+about the supplements I take.
+They used to say, someone would say,
+"What supplements do you take?"
+And they would just go, "All of them."
+I don't take all of them, but
+I have been very systematic.
+For about 30 years,
+I've been interested in
+compounds that change the nervous system.
+And I do think that the,
+the events of the last few years
+have changed the way that
+people view supplements.
+I think that more people
+are starting to think about
+how to take better care of their health.
+And they, people are realizing that
+obviously, great sleep, mindsets,
+social connection, exercise,
+nutrition and so forth
+are very important.
+But I, I actually don't know anybody,
+granted, I run with a strange crowd,
+but I don't know anybody
+that doesn't take something nowadays.
+You know, I could go
+through the whole list,
+but I would say the
+most fundamental things
+and there's no product pitch here,
+the most fundamental things are
+the things that are going to support
+your kind of foundational health.
+So for that's going to mean mainly
+getting either by food
+sources or supplements
+is going to be getting
+sufficient amounts of these
+essential fatty acids.
+So important.
+For some people that's
+taking liquid fish oil,
+for some people it's a capsule,
+for somebody that's eating fish.
+I don't like the way fish
+tastes unless I'm in Seattle,
+by the way, the seafood here is amazing,
+not so much in California.
+So I think the essential fatty acids,
+and then I'm big on the data,
+dare I say, out of Stanford,
+Justin Sonnenburg's lab
+and Chris Gardner's lab
+that these fermented foods
+of which all these cultures
+have interesting fermented foods,
+kefir, and sauerkraut, and kimchi, and,
+you know, pick your fermented food.
+That those seem to really encourage
+health of the gut microbiome.
+So I started eating a lot of those
+and taking no probiotics
+except in, you know,
+a few of the supplements
+that I was already taking.
+So I'm not trying to dodge the question,
+but I think, by and large,
+if you're eating well
+and doing the other
+foundational behaviors as well,
+you can get it way with
+a minimum of supplements.
+D3, it seems to be a lot
+of people deficient in D3,
+but not everybody.
+So I think that those are the main ones.
+However, I do think that nutrition
+should be the primary entry point.
+Again, it should be behaviors
+first, then nutrition,
+then supplements, then prescription drugs,
+only if you need them.
+And then, you know, for some people,
+their brain-machine interface
+like TMS and things like
+that are going to be useful,
+but behaviors change your nervous system,
+no supplement actually rewires you
+or changes your nervous
+system: behaviors do that.
+I hope I didn't dodge
+that question entirely.
+I do take some of the things
+that we talk about on the
+podcast to do some focused work,
+sometimes alpha-GPC,
+but lately I've been
+doing this whole thing
+of cold water exposure
+to spike my adrenaline,
+'cause I hate it,
+and it spikes my adrenaline after learning
+based on the McGaugh and Cahill data.
+"What would be your best
+one or two pieces of advice
+or recommended protocol for
+improving learning and retention
+for graduate students
+in science and medicine?
+We try to sleep sometimes."
+Thank you, JD.
+Oh great. You're at UW, JD.
+So, you know,
+I used to teach this course
+at Cold Spring Harbor
+on career development for scientists
+and the there's a lot in there,
+but the two things that
+are most important are,
+I, for sake of answering this
+question, I would say, are,
+find non-destructive ways
+to reset your dopamine
+and your energy levels
+and do those at least every three days.
+So for me, it was kind of a,
+a tough thing to take a
+long walk, or to spend,
+I used to work really hard on Mondays,
+really hard on Tuesdays,
+and I would not go in until
+the afternoon on Wednesdays
+and sometimes not at all.
+And then I go in Thursday, Friday,
+and work really, really hard
+and then not at all on Saturday
+and then maybe do a little bit
+of work from home on Sunday.
+And I was very productive that way.
+But those breaks are absolutely key
+and it's not encouraged so
+much in academic or tech
+or maybe anything now.
+I hear about so much stress and overwork.
+I say, you just do it
+and define the culture
+and let the results and your focus
+be the thing that defines you,
+not how many hours you're in there.
+But I realize there's
+a huge cognitive load
+and energetic load and for that,
+I do think these Non-Sleep
+Deep Rest protocols
+are where it comes in really handy.
+There are at least two
+faculty I know at Stanford.
+One whose a so-called
+Howard Hughes investigator,
+who is big, those are
+big deal appointments.
+They get tons of money,
+et cetera, et cetera,
+and they do amazing
+science most of the time.
+These individuals certainly do.
+And they take two 20 minute
+naps, per day, in their office.
+When this guy came and visited me,
+years ago when I was at
+a different university,
+he took the time that we were
+supposed to meet in my office
+and talk about data, he
+asked if he could take a nap.
+[audience laughs]
+And he gave a great talk that afternoon.
+So there you go.
+I do think you have to take
+control of your schedule
+and do those things.
+And I hope that helps.
+And then of course,
+for some people, exercise and
+so on is the way they reset.
+"What research or work are you doing
+or that your colleagues are doing
+that you're most excited about lately?"
+Glen, yeah.
+One project in particular,
+I hope this paper gets accepted soon,
+it's been out for review forever
+and so if the reviewers
+are in the audience,
+please just tell us one
+way or the other, you know?
+We did a very large scale
+study during the pandemic,
+we meaning David Spiegel and I,
+and an amazing PhD named Melis
+she now has two last names, excuse me,
+Balban, Yilmaz Balban.
+And Melis
+we essentially equipped people
+with remote monitoring devices
+and measured sleep and
+heart rate variability
+and a bunch of stress and
+bunch of other things.
+And we gave them
+a very brief set of breathing protocols
+and it turns out
+that this thing that I'm talking
+about a lot on the podcast,
+these days of this double
+inhale, long exhale,
+the so-called, "physiological sigh,"
+was the most effective breathing practice
+for allowing people to control
+their heart rate variability,
+reduce overall heart
+rate, access better sleep,
+and these were extremely short protocols.
+So I'm very excited about this.
+I didn't discover physiological sighs.
+I love the idea
+that people can do a very
+brief protocol, once a day,
+maybe even just while
+walking down the street
+or in the moment
+and actually learn to control
+that autonomic seesaw better.
+So I'm very excited about that.
+And then we are gearing
+up to do some studies
+on people who have more
+severe forms of anxiety
+and panic attack, using
+mainly respiration,
+but also looking at some of these eye,
+vision-related ways of
+controlling the nervous system.
+I love that stuff.
+If I keep talking about it,
+I'm going to give you a data presentation
+so I'm going to turn around.
+"How does dopamine
+factor into neuroplasticity if at all?"
+Colin, great question.
+It's a very strong trigger of plasticity,
+so much so in fact that
+there's some work that shows
+if you stimulate with an electrode,
+the brain area that releases dopamine,
+and you pair that with anything,
+anything, even just like
+an eight kilohertz tone,
+[vocalizes a high tone]
+the brain remaps and it's like,
+"Oh, I love that eight kilohertz tone."
+Remember dopamine is
+dumb, and is just dumb.
+And it is just, you
+know, it's like Costello
+when he sits this dog,
+I could hang a rope from a tree.
+This dog was so lazy he wouldn't
+cross a room for a steak.
+You had to give the steak to him,
+[audience laughing]
+but it would run across a field.
+He would run and jump on
+and hold onto that rope,
+and he would sometimes
+bite through his lip
+with like blood dripping down.
+And I was like, "Oh my gosh,"
+it was like breaking my heart.
+He loved every sit, that's
+dopamine; turns us into idiots.
+He was as smart about what
+he needed to be smart about.
+Dopamine.
+So if you trigger dopamine
+release with Ritalin, Adderall,
+to a lesser extent L-Tyrosine,
+and certainly please don't do this,
+but cocaine, amphetamine,
+whatever you're doing
+seems super interesting.
+It's true. And that's why
+it's such a slippery slope.
+It makes anything you're doing
+seem interesting and important.
+And actually I'll use this
+as an opportunity to say
+something about the
+psychedelic thing earlier.
+One of the issues with MDMA,
+it's a very unusual brain
+state: it's high dopamine,
+high serotonin, completely
+synthetic compound.
+There are other things in
+there that it does as well.
+One of the problems with people I see
+with the problem with
+people just taking MDMA,
+just at a basic level,
+is that if you're not pushing that
+towards some therapeutic
+outcome, music sounds amazing.
+Everything feels and sounds amazing,
+but it's a very neurochemically,
+you know, severe state.
+So that's why I think
+if people are going to
+explore those things,
+do it as part of
+one of the university-supported
+clinical trials.
+One of the reas-
+those drugs make everything
+seem interesting,
+even stuff that's not
+terribly interesting.
+Now they also have
+the potential for trauma healing capacity.
+These are the MAPS studies and so on.
+So you have to be very careful
+with what you pair with dopamine
+and what you pair dopamine with.
+And for those of you
+that are high sensation
+seeking, novelty seeking,
+and everything's interesting to you,
+and you want more, and
+more, and more, experiences,
+I, you basically have a
+eight cylinder car in you
+and you need to be very careful
+how you drive that thing.
+Like any high performance automobile,
+it's going to spend more time in the shop,
+[audience laughing]
+so learn to drive appropriately.
+"What advice can you
+offer to future scientists
+who want to make an impact like you have?"
+Ryan O'Boyle, get tenure first.
+No, I'm kidding.
+So I have this weird history in science
+and I'm not looking for sympathy here,
+but my undergraduate
+advisor, who I adored,
+he's like a father to me,
+my graduate advisor,
+and my postdoc advisor,
+who I also adored, all three of them died:
+suicide, cancer, cancer, really young.
+So the joke in my field is
+you don't want me to work for you.
+But in all seriousness,
+all three of them had a
+really morbid sense of humor,
+all amazing people,
+but it is this kind of
+weird curse that I've had.
+So what scientists, you
+know, what advice, you know,
+well, Ben Barres,
+the late Ben Barres died
+of pancreatic cancer,
+an amazing individual.
+They're actually making a
+documentary about Ben's life.
+He's transgendered. He
+was a totally irreverent.
+He said whatever he thought.
+He offended everybody.
+He was awesome. Brilliant too.
+Ben and I had a conversation
+as he was dying.
+I recorded a lot of conversations with him
+and I told him I was interested in doing
+public-facing education.
+And he said,
+"Well, you're tenured now and,
+people are going to be upset,
+and they're not going to like it,
+and your colleagues are
+probably going to hate it
+so whatever you do and
+you better make it good."
+And I was like, "Wow, that
+doesn't really help much, Ben."
+And he said,
+"You know, you seem to
+have a compulsion for it."
+So, he was right.
+I think that if you are
+excited about science,
+and sharing what you know, then do that.
+And even if it seems super nerdy,
+I mean, there are these ento-
+I think they call
+themselves entomologists,
+the insect people,
+they, I mean they make insects
+seem really, really cool.
+And if you are excited about
+spindle kinetics or whatever,
+you know, tell people
+about it, I really mean it.
+I think that the one caveat is that
+I do think it's important
+to get a formal, rigorous
+training in it first.
+I think that you'll go further
+and faster in the long run.
+And there's some amazing people out there.
+There's a postdoc at Stanford.
+I think his name is Ben Rein,
+I think if you shorten it up on Instagram,
+it's actually brain,
+brein, 'cause he works out
+he talks about brain science
+so that's why it's weird:
+B B R E I N.
+He does a great job.
+And he's a really good example of someone
+who's still on the ascent with his career,
+doing serious science, and
+doing science communication.
+But you have to be careful,
+it's time consuming.
+Look, you, people will
+dislike you for whatever.
+I made the mistake once of
+saying that I eat butter.
+Apparently that's a sin on the internet.
+I like little bits of
+actually like a lot of butter,
+but try and eat little bits of butter.
+But somehow it's like,
+there's this idea that
+I eat sticks of butter.
+So you have to be careful.
+[audience laughing]
+Like, I mean, the things I've
+heard, I heard I was dead.
+That was cool.
+So you have to be careful
+and remember everything
+is stamped into the,
+the cloud now and the metaverse
+or whatever it's called.
+So I would say, here are
+the rules that we have
+at the podcast and on
+here's the rules that
+I created for myself.
+I truly don't do it for me.
+I do it 'cause I think
+people want to hear about it,
+but I've been telling myself
+that since I was six years old.
+The other thing is never, ever, ever do it
+just for your own gratification.
+You should really try and think,
+"Is anyone going to get
+anything useful out of this,
+potentially?"
+That's the goal.
+If you're doing that,
+it'll work out for you.
+If you are thinking about
+how to get followers
+or something like that,
+it ain't going to work out.
+That's my advice.
+"Is age 66 too old for neuroplasticity?"
+No, no, I'll cut myself off,
+"to begin learning again?"
+Sandra Trazzare, no!
+Did I pronounce that right?
+Thank you, Sandra.
+No, Richard Feynman, the
+great Richard Feynman,
+taught himself to draw later in life.
+He was also really into flotation tanks.
+Did you know that?
+Yeah, he was also into bongo drumming
+naked on the roof at Caltech.
+Richard Feynman, you
+know, did so many things
+that would get most people fired nowadays.
+He's just lucky he was alive when he was.
+You can absolutely learn
+at 66 and way beyond.
+There's an amazing study
+from Rusty Gage's lab at the
+Salk Institute years ago,
+showing that even people
+who are very late in life,
+terminally ill in fact,
+are still producing new neurons
+in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.
+These people that were gracious enough
+to allow researchers to
+inject them with dyes
+that would label these neurons
+for analysis postmortem, after they died.
+Absolutely you can learn.
+What's harder is focus.
+Oftentimes what's harder is sleep as well,
+but the same mechanisms apply.
+There's no evidence whatsoever
+that neuroplasticity
+disappears at any stage
+despite what Hubel and
+Wiesel told the BBC.
+"How do you tackle
+reading research papers?
+Do you have a specific strategy?"
+Anne Hun, yes I do.
+I do. I take notes on everything.
+I try and so I there's four
+questions that we teach students
+and that I think that I use.
+The first one is:
+"What's the question they're asking,
+major and more specific?"
+Second is: "What did they do?
+What are they, like
+methods-wise, what did they do?"
+You don't have to know all
+the details in the methods
+necessarily, but be
+versed in those methods,
+but you have to kind of understand like,
+are they looking at mice?
+Are they looking at humans?
+Is this a, you know, did they have people
+in two different conditions or just one?
+You have to understand what did they do,
+then you ask, "What did they find?"
+And then the last question
+is the most important one
+and you should write down
+the answer to this is:
+"What did they conclude?"
+And then you look back
+at the first question
+and you go,
+"Did they actually answer that question,
+or is it something unrelated?"
+And those four questions
+are essentially the way
+that I parse each paper.
+Learning to parse papers
+is tricky for the podcast.
+I use the telephone.
+I call people and I badger
+them and I ask them, you know,
+"Like who's doing the really
+good work in this area?"
+And I spend a lot of hours doing it.
+And then the best way to remember science
+is to tell someone about it.
+So before each podcast I'll
+call someone and be like,
+"Hey, did you know
+that they used to throw
+kids in the river?"
+After, I do this, and my
+sister, my poor sister,
+and she's like, "Yeah."
+My sister, by the way,
+does not watch the podcast.
+I, she's a therapist.
+And she's like,
+"Hey, I learned this amazing
+breathing technique."
+I was like,
+"Oh yeah, really? Tell me about it."
+And it's like, someone else is there.
+I'm like, "You know, I have a podcast."
+She's like, "I don't like your podcast."
+You know, it's older
+sister, it's older sister.
+It's, she's not lying.
+"What is your favorite
+sauce, condiment, seasoning?
+Sauce.
+There's one in every audience.
+I like the spicy stuff.
+We've been fermenting
+our own food at home.
+It's kind of cool.
+You put the cabbage and the stuff
+in the little ceramic thing outside,
+and then it, it goes
+[popping]
+It makes this amazing sound.
+And then you can like
+make your own sauerkraut and you know,
+with peppers and like
+fermenting that stuff,
+it's really good.
+Okay.
+They're telling me one more
+question so we'll do two.
+"What's most important from your ADH, ah."
+Gabriel, a lot of questions about ADHD,
+for people on medication
+or not on medication,
+so I'll answer both.
+For people on medication,
+I think work with somebody really good
+who's willing to work with you
+to allow you to find that
+minimal effective dose,
+and also timing that dose.
+One of the key things that we know now
+is that from that waking
+up point in your morning
+until about eight or nine hours later,
+we've sort of named that
+phase one of the day
+for lack of a better naming protocol.
+The systems that release cortisol,
+dopamine, and epinephrine,
+are essentially more
+effective at producing those
+than they are in the
+later periods of the day.
+Which makes sense if you think about
+the way that the autonomic
+nervous system works, et cetera.
+So there's an important question
+that I can't answer for you,
+but you can answer for you,
+which is if you're using
+Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse,
+these things that enhance
+dopaminergic transmission,
+Modafinil, Armodafinil, by the way,
+for the people in the audience like me,
+who didn't go to college when
+these things were all in use,
+the numbers of people
+that use these compounds,
+on and off prescription, is astronomical.
+It's incredible.
+I didn't realize it.
+I think something like
+80% of college students
+use these at some point.
+Incredible, 'cause they put you
+into a narrow aperture
+tunnel of concentration.
+So you want to, with a
+physician's support of course,
+to help, get permission or not,
+to figure out what time of
+day to take your medication.
+Now for people who are not on medication,
+I'll just go right back
+to what I said earlier,
+which is that you can train focus,
+but it feels terrible to train it.
+It is hard.
+Again there are these large
+scale studies in China
+and elsewhere of people
+literally teaching themselves,
+and yes, they blink, although less often,
+to focus their vision on a narrow aperture
+and to really battle
+through that agitation,
+stress, and learn how to keep their focus.
+Now focus will drift, right?
+Focus is not a constant; focus will drift,
+and you pop out of focused states
+and then refocus, and
+pop out, and refocus.
+That's something that you can train up.
+I've heard from many people
+who have managed to train
+themselves off medication
+or to lower doses of medication,
+and look, some people can't do that.
+They absolutely have to maintain
+their standard medication protocols.
+This is a larger discussion, obviously,
+as it relates to ADHD.
+We're going to do another episode on ADHD
+because the data are
+coming out so so fast.
+"What future episodes
+are in the pipeline?"
+David Nguyen. Okay, thank
+you for that question.
+We have one on grief.
+We have an amazing episode with
+a guy from the Rockefeller University
+on the, this is,
+am I allowed to say it's going
+to be my favorite episode?
+I love all the guests,
+but this episode just blew me away.
+It's on the relationship
+between language,
+speech, dance, and music.
+And I have no musical talent
+and I'm not a very good dancer.
+So that's being generous.
+Amazing interplay between those things,
+exercise in the brain, OCD,
+bulimia, binge-eating disorder,
+Peter Attia's coming on.
+He'll teach us about everything
+medicine, and longevity.
+And I'm kind of blanking at the moment.
+David Anderson from Caltech
+on aggression and emotional states.
+Amazing.
+And then there are a number of people,
+Lisa Feldman Barrett, or Barrett Feldman.
+I always get it backwards.
+Sorry, Lisa, on emotions in the brain.
+And really we do take suggestions
+about who to bring on the
+podcast very seriously.
+What we're mostly looking for
+are the people that no one else has heard,
+that people haven't heard of,
+who are not going on podcasts every week
+and that people should
+absolutely hear from.
+And then I will tell you,
+they're going to kill me for saying this,
+but I'm going to do it anyway,
+we have some short series coming up
+with expert professionals.
+I'm going to do a short series on trauma.
+And my hope for this series
+is that you'll actually get to
+see an exquisitely
+skilled trauma therapist,
+take someone through, excuse me,
+I seem so excited I'm spitting
+on the audience, excuse me.
+So it, to take someone
+through actual trauma therapy.
+This isn't staged.
+This is somebody who's actually
+in a point of near
+suicidal grief and trauma,
+taking them through it in
+the course of the podcast,
+as people can see what this
+process actually entails.
+That's a very meaningful project to me
+for a number of reasons
+so we're really excited about that.
+And you know, to be
+honest, I feel like there's
+just such a treasure trove
+of information out there
+I just want to grab it all,
+and tell you all about it,
+until, I always say, "If nothing
+else, I'll cure insomnia."
+So, the, yeah.
+[audience applauding vigorously]
+Thank you. Appreciate it.
+[applause continuing]
+Thank you so much for your time.
+I really appreciate everyone
+coming out on a weekday
+and I'd be remiss if I didn't say,
+Thank you for your interest in science.
+[audience cheering and applauding]
+[upbeat music playing]

Data/transcripts/3_auLYOilb8_20241225194826.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1854 @@
+- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
+where we discuss science
+and science based-tools for everyday life.
+[light music]
+I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a Professor of
+Neurobiology in Ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+Recently, I had the pleasure
+of hosting two live events,
+one in Seattle, Washington,
+and one in Portland, Oregon,
+both entitled "The Brain Body Contract,"
+where I discussed science
+and science-related tools
+for mental health, physical
+health and performance.
+My favorite part of each evening, however,
+was the question and answer period
+that followed the lecture.
+I love the question and answer period
+because it gives me an
+opportunity to hear directly
+from the audience as to
+what they want to know most,
+and indeed to get into a bit of dialogue.
+So we really clarify what
+are the underlying mechanisms
+of particular tools,
+how best to use the tools for
+things like focus and sleep.
+We also touched on some things
+related to mental health
+and physical health.
+It was a delight for me,
+and I like to think that
+the audience learned a lot.
+I know that many of you weren't
+able to attend those events,
+but we wanted to make the
+information available to you.
+Therefore, what follows
+this is a recording
+of the question and answer period
+from the lecture in Portland, Oregon.
+I hope you'll find it to be
+both interesting and informative.
+I'd also like to thank our
+sponsors of these live events.
+The first is Momentous Supplements,
+which is our partner with
+the "Huberman Lab Podcast,"
+providing supplements that are
+of the very highest quality
+that ship international and
+that are arranged in dosages
+and single ingredient
+formulations that make it possible
+for you to develop the optimal
+supplement strategy for you.
+And I'd also like to
+thank our other sponsor,
+which is InsideTracker,
+which provides blood tests and DNA tests
+so you can monitor your immediate
+and long-term health progress.
+I'd also like to announce that there are
+two new live events scheduled.
+The first one is going to take
+place Sunday, October 16th,
+at The Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.
+The other live event will take place
+Wednesday, November 9th,
+at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
+Tickets to both of those
+events are now available online
+at hubermanlab.com/tour.
+That's hubermanlab.com/tour.
+I do hope that you learn
+from and enjoy the recording
+of the question and answer
+period that follows this.
+And last, but certainly not least,
+thank you for your interest in science.
+[light music]
+"What are the current best
+practices for post TBIs,"
+traumatic brain injuries for those of you
+that aren't familiar with TBIs,
+"Especially long term,
+multiple," ooh, "et cetera."
+"Thoughts on hyperbaric O?"
+I'm so glad you asked
+this, Danny Morledge,
+"As treatment for TBIs?"
+Okay, TBI...
+Now, one thing about TBI and concussion,
+everyone thinks football.
+Guess what?
+Most of the TBI is not football.
+There aren't that many football players,
+they're just large so they stand out.
+There might be a few here this evening.
+[audience laughing]
+Of course, football players are a concern
+when it comes to TBI.
+Most head injuries are going
+to be construction workers.
+Have you ever seen the
+hard hats they wear?
+Those, I don't even know if
+they are just there for show.
+It doesn't make sense.
+And that we actually
+have a lab at Stanford
+that's focused very hard on
+trying to solve this problem.
+So, construction workers, car
+accidents, bicycle accidents.
+Portland, amazing city to cycle;
+I'm frankly afraid to cycle.
+You're a small moving object
+around these big objects
+and people are staring
+into their little aperture
+on their phone while driving.
+I mean, whatever happened
+to that by the way,
+of not texting while driving?
+Somehow that just disappeared.
+It's like, it really has just disappeared.
+There was all this science
+showing that it's worse
+than drunk driving.
+TBI.
+Well, the basic rules
+of the "don'ts" apply.
+If you get a head injury,
+don't get a second head injury.
+But that often isn't feasible
+for people that need to work,
+continue working in construction,
+or that are struggling.
+What do we know?
+Well, this is a great
+opportunity for me to distinguish
+modulatory foundational tools
+from things that directly
+change your brain
+and nervous system the
+way that you want to.
+What do I mean by modulatory?
+We hear so much and
+there's so many studies
+showing that great
+sleep, quality nutrition,
+good social interactions,
+avoiding chronic stress,
+and on and on and on are
+important for everything;
+they're related to Alzheimer's,
+they're related to ADHD.
+I mean, we could do
+thousands of podcast episodes
+just returning to the same 10 things:
+Sleep, don't stress too much or too long,
+good social connection, avoid
+toxic people, eat good food,
+not too much processed food;
+We could have an argument all night
+and I don't want to have one about whether
+or not it's mainly plants or this.
+I mean, this is obviously
+eating high quality food
+is something that we should all be doing,
+which foods you select is a
+topic that is very barbed wire,
+and I can give only my opinions.
+All of that modulates your brain function,
+but it doesn't mediate or
+change anything directly.
+It's setting a foundation
+of what's possible.
+So we should all be doing those things,
+and especially people who have TBI.
+Now, this question relates
+to hyperbaric chamber.
+Hyperbaric chamber, there's
+some very interesting data.
+It's essentially a
+hyperoxygenation of the brain
+for very brief periods of time.
+I think the data on
+hyperbaric chamber and TBI
+are very encouraging.
+The problem is, much in the
+way that a few years ago,
+cryo was only available in a few places.
+And now people are doing ice baths
+and cold showers on their own.
+It's hard to find a hyperbaric chamber.
+They aren't just laying around,
+and they don't have
+them at spas typically,
+and they are quite expensive.
+So, yes, there are
+interesting and important data
+I think on hyperbaric chamber.
+You definitely want to
+work with a physician
+or somebody who is very skilled,
+a practitioner who's very
+skilled in hyperbaric chamber.
+They do seem to improve brain
+function by hyperoxygenating
+the brain for brief periods of time.
+It seems to improve a number
+of things, but above all,
+it seems to improve the
+quality and duration of sleep,
+which indirectly allows
+the brain to repair itself,
+because as I mentioned earlier,
+brain change largely occurs in sleep.
+So if you don't have access
+to a hyperbaric chamber,
+but you do have TBI, what
+are some of the other data?
+What do those point to?
+Well, I'd go on and on,
+and you don't have to get
+this from supplements,
+you can get it from food,
+but this threshold level of
+these EPA essential fatty acids.
+There are now so many data,
+so much data on the valuable role
+of these essential EPA fatty acids.
+Thresholds being somewhere
+between one and two grams
+per day of the EPA.
+So much so, actually, that
+there are now prescription forms
+of EPA that doctors are
+starting to prescribe
+for people with TBI.
+Although for most people
+you can get this through...
+You can look up and we've
+done podcast episodes
+about different ways to access this.
+Also functions as an antidepressant;
+equally good, believe it or not,
+in clinical trials to SSRIs
+once one gets over the one or
+basically two grams per day
+of the EPA.
+The resident expert on
+the internet about this
+is pretty extreme about the dosages,
+and that's Dr. Rhonda
+Patrick, who by the way,
+deserves a nod of
+acknowledgement and support
+because it turns out that
+before me or David Sinclair
+or Matt Walker or any of these guys
+were blabbing to the world about
+stuff that they had learned
+in the archives of science
+and in their laboratories,
+the first person in was this
+woman named Rhonda Patrick.
+As far as I know, the first
+public facing formerly trained
+scientist to start going
+on all these podcasts
+and risk her reputation
+and this kind of stuff
+that you deal with when
+you put your neck out
+there like that.
+And Rhonda's, I think, terrific.
+We don't agree on everything
+and it would be weird if we did,
+but I think she's really
+been the proponent
+of these higher doses of EPAs for TBI
+and for cognitive function into all ages.
+"We often hear about ways
+to increase dopamine.
+However, are there effective
+ways to decrease dopamine
+when you get too much of
+it for certain behaviors
+or habits we want to break?"
+Katie Hamm, I think is the last name.
+Thank you, Katie, for your question.
+Yeah, dopamine is a slippery slope.
+And Dr. Anna Lembke is the expert in this,
+and we've had a lot of conversations.
+She's one of my closer
+friends on the faculty.
+Unfortunately for her,
+our coffee discussions
+often last four hours or more.
+Her poor patients and family.
+Here's the thing,
+when dopamine is higher
+in your brain and body,
+when you've deployed it through excitement
+or pharmacology or otherwise,
+it tends to narrow your focus
+and make you seek more of it
+in that general theme that
+you happen to be focused on.
+It could be anything.
+That's the scary thing about dopamine.
+What can you do to control
+it and to reduce it?
+Well, for those of you
+that are engaging in habits
+that are healthy,
+maybe that doesn't
+require reducing dopamine.
+How do you define
+healthy versus unhealthy?
+Well, I think the simplest
+way to define addiction,
+at least by my mind,
+is that addiction is a
+progressive narrowing
+of the things that bring you pleasure.
+And a good life is a progressive expansion
+of the things that bring you pleasure.
+A rather simple definition,
+and yet when we think about
+the biology of dopamine,
+dopamine is not unique to one pursuit.
+It's not unique to the pursuit of sex
+or the pursuit of warmth when you're cold
+or cool environments when you're too warm
+or food or social media,
+it's just a dumb molecule that puts you
+into this forward state of
+mass, small visual aperture,
+and a kind of obsessive-like nature.
+What can you do to counter that?
+Well, the best thing to do
+is to not get into that state too long,
+but if you do, the best
+thing you can do is to try
+and switch off that system,
+not through pharmacology,
+but by not pursuing more dopamine.
+The day after a big event,
+the so-called postpartum depression,
+named of course because of true postpartum
+after the delivery of a child.
+It's quite common for people
+to get very, very depressed.
+There's a lot of neurochemical
+and hormonal adjustments
+that are occurring,
+but different types of
+postpartum depression occur;
+after a big party, the Monday
+blues, the Sunday blues,
+the post-whatever blues.
+The four month mark in a
+relationship is typically
+when dopamine starts to drop.
+I always tell people, just wait.
+I'm telling somebody very
+close to me right now,
+just wait four months,
+four months, four months,
+and also spend as much time
+with that person as possible.
+I don't know what this deal is
+about not spending as
+much time with people.
+I think people are afraid
+that the dopamine wave pool
+is just going to pull them both under.
+I think they've called that
+the escalator model of relationship,
+where you just sort of find
+yourself in the relationship
+because you went through
+the stages without
+actually deciding on them.
+In any event, four months
+seems to be the stage in which
+the dopamine crescendo
+starts to relax a little bit,
+not in a long distance
+relationship, however.
+We know this, right?
+Anticipation is dopamine,
+that positive anticipation,
+and there's a whole
+beautiful science of this,
+and I should say psychology of this.
+There's a wonderful book actually.
+The name of the book
+is embarrassing always,
+I don't know why, for me to say.
+It's by a psychologist
+called "Can Love Last?",
+which is a psychoanalytic book
+about this dopamine-serotonin system
+and the kind of seesawing back and forth.
+And the fact that in relationships,
+people often just slam on
+the dopamine side of things
+and then they hit a wall
+and want to break up.
+Or they go into this like warm,
+cozy, fuzzy feeling thing,
+and they go, "Well, I guess
+the exciting part is over."
+And this idea that one could actually,
+or two people or however
+many people were in Portland
+could oscillate this seesaw.
+[audience laughing]
+I don't think that you
+want to use pharmacology
+to turn off the dopamine system,
+but for people that have
+a hard time sleeping
+and that are really in
+a state of agitation
+and constantly obsessing,
+the psychiatrists...
+One of the oldest and
+most effective treatments
+is that the psychiatrists,
+and this does have to be prescribed,
+we use a very, very low dose
+of a dopamine receptor blocker,
+like Haloperidol, which is
+used to treat schizophrenia.
+A very low dose to shut down
+the obsession component.
+The smart, well-educated psychiatrists
+know this as a useful tool,
+but this is a one time
+thing with a very low dose
+because having your
+dopamine blocked sucks.
+It does not feel good,.
+But not being able to sleep
+and being in an obsessive mode also sucks.
+So it's actually a very
+potent clinical tool.
+So pharmacology is one tool,
+but really at the far end of things.
+I believe that one should try and modulate
+their own dopamine by
+not rewarding one's self
+on a regular basis, but only randomly.
+Random intermittent reward
+is truly the best schedule
+of reward, hence slot machines and so on.
+And you should engage
+random intermittent reward.
+And I think this is also the
+way that we should train kids.
+I call it training kids.
+You can tell I don't have kids.
+[audience laughing]
+You don't reward them every time.
+I don't believe everyone
+should get a trophy every time,
+nor should you always
+just reward the winners
+because those winners often,
+we see cases of this, high
+profile cases of this,
+they often crash and burn.
+I mean the number of high performers
+that crash and burn publicly
+and Lord knows how many do
+it privately is remarkable.
+It's 'cause their dopamine
+system is all messed up.
+So random intermittent reward
+is the schedule of reward
+that we should impart on ourselves.
+"If you had 10 minutes a day to improve
+your brain plasticity, what would you do?
+And when would you do it?"
+Richard Conlin, thank you.
+Well, I'm going to say again,
+I would absolutely anchor my physiology
+with morning sunlight viewing.
+I can't help it.
+Do you know what's interesting?
+And I'll tell you very briefly,
+you know what's special
+about morning sunlight?
+This low solar angle sunlight.
+I don't think I've talked
+about this much on social media
+or on the podcast.
+There's a group at the
+University of Washington,
+a couple, Jay and Maureen Neitz.
+They run a lab together.
+That sounds like a horrible thing,
+but they do it and they
+get along very well.
+And they've discovered
+that the cells in your eye,
+the neurons that set your circadian clock
+make you alert during the day
+and make you sleepy at night,
+and so on.
+Those cells respond best
+to yellow-blue contrast
+and orange tones.
+Now, this is important
+because when you go out
+in the morning, even
+if it's not at sunrise,
+but it's close to sunrise
+or you look at the sun in the evening,
+what you'll see is yellow-blue
+contrast or orange;
+yellow, blue, orange,
+that old thing from
+kindergarten or first grade.
+That's not the color of light
+that you're going to see
+when the sun is overhead.
+Now, this also is really interesting
+because artificial lights,
+at least to my understanding,
+even the daylight simulators
+have not picked up on this.
+It's just about bright light.
+Someone ought to design
+something that can mimic this,
+but nature has done
+this beautifully for us.
+And so viewing low solar
+angle sunlight in the morning
+and in the evening is most effective
+because of those yellow-blue contrasts.
+Now here's the really wild thing.
+Those circuits that set your
+levels of alertness and sleep,
+yes, they respond best
+to yellow-blue contrast,
+but what that tells us is crazy.
+What that means is that color vision
+was probably not related
+to color perception first
+because all of that is
+completely subconscious.
+The pathways that do this
+are present in people
+who are pattern vision blind.
+So, what do I mean?
+I mean that color vision likely evolved
+from a need to synchronize
+your internal state
+with the external world.
+And the best stimulus in the outside world
+to do that is yellow-blue contrast.
+In other words, our
+ability to detect color
+was first and foremost, and
+we understand this based on
+evolutionary genomics and so forth,
+to extract time of day information,
+not color of fruit or color
+of skin or anything like that.
+That's all secondary,
+which is wild and crazy.
+And this is yet another example of the way
+we think things work is
+not the way they work.
+It's completely 180 degrees opposite.
+I'm just going to give
+you a little teaser.
+I had a guest on the podcast,
+we haven't aired the episode yet.
+His name is Erich Jarvis,
+he works on speech and language.
+He also was admitted into
+Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
+Again, who are these people?
+He's a professor at the Rockefeller.
+Anyway, I learned from Erich,
+and you'll learn when
+that episode comes out,
+that you only find elaborate
+speech and language
+in species that also
+engage in dance and song.
+And the genomics point to the
+fact that song and singing
+came first and language came second.
+And that led me during that
+episode of the podcast,
+I wrote down in my notes,
+I was listening to him talk and
+I wrote down in my notebook,
+it's just scrawled in big letters.
+It says, "I am so happy right now."
+I was just blown away.
+And it makes so much
+sense when you hear it,
+that the colors in the
+sky were what our system
+is trying to extract,
+not a perception of
+those colors in the sky,
+'cause they're informing us about time
+and orienting us in time.
+That song and the communication
+of emotional states
+would be simpler and more foundational
+than communication about
+specific patterns of language.
+When you hear it, suddenly it makes sense.
+But of course we're human beings,
+and unless you're Erich Jarvis
+or Alia Crum or Anna Lembke,
+you think about all this
+stuff backwards, as I do.
+"How can I navigate my way
+through taking supplements
+to optimize my health
+when my career demands,
+Army infantry, prevent me
+from being able to establish
+consistent routines?"
+Andrew Yagen, well thank
+you for doing what you do.
+Andrew, so the consistent
+routine thing is tough.
+Here's what I can say
+without going into a long
+two and a half hour episode
+about jet lag and shift work,
+which we've done.
+The most powerful way to anchor
+your brain and body in time
+is indeed viewing sunlight
+at consistent times of day.
+That's not something I made up.
+We know this based on a
+lot of work that dates back
+to the 1930s.
+The second most powerful
+stimulus is going to be movement
+and changes in body temperature.
+In particular, increases
+in body temperature
+tend to make us alert,
+and decreases in body temperature
+tend to make us sleepy.
+Body temperature drops
+one to three degrees
+to get us into sleep.
+Why does a cold shower wake you up?
+Adrenaline is released
+and believe it or not,
+your body is heating up
+internally to combat that cold,
+unless you make yourself hypothermic.
+So, sauna, hot baths to get sleepy,
+cold showers, ice baths,
+et cetera to wake up.
+Sort of obvious when you hear it,
+but it's counterintuitive
+because you think,
+oh, heating up the body to wake up
+and cooling down the body to go to sleep.
+So getting into cold
+ought to cool me down,
+but your body compensates
+just like if you threw a
+cold towel on a thermostat,
+you'd crank up the temperature in the room
+and vice versa for heat.
+Okay, so what do you do?
+You want to try and use
+as many of these things,
+light, temperature, exercise, food.
+When you eat is typically
+associated with waking.
+Very few of us are capable
+of eating in our sleep.
+And then the other one is
+social activity and rhythms.
+Now the discombobulated person
+is going to be the person
+that has not aligned these
+things in a consistent way.
+So while schedules vary,
+and Andrew, I don't know
+your exact schedule,
+what I can say is if you
+suddenly go from daytime behavior
+and sleeping at night to
+the so-called vampire shift,
+as it's called in the military,
+and suddenly you're up in
+the middle of the night
+and you're sleeping during the day,
+then when you come off that shift,
+what you want to do is try
+and combine as many of those
+same things at one time.
+So it would be get your sunlight,
+so go jogging without your sunglasses,
+drink your coffee, engage with
+other people and communicate,
+eat a meal afterwards or
+as the case may be before.
+Try and bring as many
+of those things together
+at the same time of day for a few days
+and pretty soon your system
+will map around that.
+So the reason I encourage for those of us
+that are not doing shift work
+to try and be fairly consistent
+about sunlight viewing
+is it sets in motion
+everything else that's correct,
+in terms of timing of
+eating, appetite will follow,
+when your alert will follow.
+You'll start to learn your own rhythms.
+When you can't control your schedule,
+try and combine as many of those cues;
+again, light, temperature, exercise, food,
+social engagement into one period of time
+and try and lock that into a more or less
+a one or two hour period or
+plus or minus one or two hours
+at a particular time of day
+for at least two or three days.
+And your schedule, meaning
+your internal clocks
+will lock to that.
+"How is social media changing our brains?"
+Thomas Adcock.
+Well, you hear all the terrible ways
+in which it's changing our brains.
+And I think that again,
+we go back to this thing,
+is it the aperture that we're looking at?
+So is it the format that
+we're engaging in things?
+Or is it the content?
+Well, the way I like to
+think about the phone
+is the way that we've been
+engaging with the phone
+and the laptop for that matter,
+in staring into the small
+visual aperture each day
+is sort of like walking like
+this all day long, right?
+We have this amazing
+ability to shuffle our feet
+and take small steps
+or to take big strides,
+to run, to move...
+I think that's the sagittal
+plane for movement.
+I know it for the brain,
+but I always mess it.
+The PTs are vicious
+people online, by the way.
+The PTs and nutrition people,
+I've learned to just not
+say anything about that.
+I'm not a PT and I'm not
+a physical therapist.
+And they do incredible
+work, but they're like,
+it's a very spirited crowd.
+[audience laughing]
+And the nutrition thing is really weird.
+I mean, it's just incredible.
+People are either throwing liver at you
+or they're throwing celery at you
+or they're fasting or they're not fasting.
+It's nuts.
+In any case, the social media
+and staring at a small visual aperture
+is changing our brains.
+Here's one way I know in
+which it's changing our brains
+and then I'll tell you how to fix it.
+If you stare or look at
+something within two feet of you
+for a certain number of hours each day,
+your eyeball actually gets longer.
+And the visual image then is focused
+in front of your neural retina,
+not onto your neural retina,
+and you are becoming myopic; nearsighted.
+And if you look at things
+in the distance enough,
+guess what?
+Your eyeball changes shape
+and your lens will focus
+appropriately the image onto your retina.
+It takes some work.
+Kids that look at things
+up close too much,
+and adults that look at
+things up close too much
+become nearsighted.
+And there's a beautiful
+set of clinical trials now
+where mainly in kids,
+if kids get outside for two hours a day,
+getting a lot of this UVB and blue light
+that we're told is so terrible for us,
+but they get it from sunlight,
+they actually can reverse myopia,
+or reduce the incidence of
+myopia, maybe even glaucoma.
+Although that's a big maybe.
+So, how much staring into
+a small visual aperture
+is too much?
+I don't know.
+But what we do know is that we
+are literally becoming myopic
+in terms of our vision
+and we're becoming myopic
+in terms of our cognition.
+And then there's the whole business
+of what's actually
+contained in those Tweets
+and those social media feeds
+and those news stories.
+Which frankly, I feel
+like you lose either way,
+whether or not you're
+in one political camp
+or another political camp,
+you're upset about half of
+the information out there.
+So I feel like, and I'm
+not someone who knows
+how to talk about politics
+without stumbling,
+I didn't do well in social
+studies in this sort of thing.
+It just never made sense to me.
+It just felt like the
+prize goes to the person
+who can shout the loudest
+and the most coherently
+for a moment.
+But I encourage, of course,
+people to be politically active.
+And I vote.
+[audience laughing]
+But the content is tricky to navigate.
+And I can't really speak to that,
+except that it seems to
+be bothering everybody
+on one side or the other or in the middle.
+And the format is something
+that we really understand.
+And again, I don't know of
+many people that are talking
+about this narrow visual
+window format thing.
+It came up more during the
+lockdowns when we were all inside
+a lot and not looking out at a distance.
+The data say really to try
+and get at least 10 minutes
+of long distance viewing,
+so longer than 10 feet away from us,
+for every 30 minutes of closeup viewing.
+And not a lot of us are doing that.
+If you're walking to your
+car looking at your phone,
+you're definitely losing an opportunity.
+"What new piece of neurological research
+are you most excited about?
+Mateo Minato.
+Ooh.
+I think the piece of
+neurological research that I...
+All right, the weird stuff.
+I've got this colleague at Stanford,
+Tony Wyss-Coray, and they're
+really into literally taking
+proteins from young blood
+and young spinal cord
+cerebral spinal fluid
+and putting it into
+older people and animals,
+and they get younger.
+That stuff's pretty wild.
+The fecal transplant stuff is pretty wild.
+You take the microbiome from
+one person and as it sounds,
+you transplant it to somebody else
+and they take on the physical
+characteristics of the donor.
+It's crazy.
+Until I talk to my [chuckling]...
+There's some shouts for fecal transplant.
+Nice.
+[audience laughing]
+I have never read the method
+sections of those papers.
+I'm actually afraid to
+read the method sections.
+I would say this is not neurological,
+but the work from Chris
+Gardner and Justin Sonnenburg,
+also at Stanford,
+it makes it sound like I just like,
+"Stanford, Stanford, Stanford."
+But these are the people I'm
+closest to and surrounded by.
+There are excellent places
+everywhere, of course,
+including OHSU and I'm not just
+saying that 'cause I'm here.
+I actually close colleagues
+here and friends here at OHSU.
+Also an amazing, although
+that tram thing freaks me out,
+it's like I always just
+have all these ideas
+about what's going to
+happen if that thing breaks.
+But the microbiome data
+are really interesting.
+I never understood why
+getting your gut microbiome
+was important.
+And it turns out it's because
+your gut actually makes
+many of the neurotransmitter precursors
+that your brain uses.
+So that's pretty cool.
+And I always thought it
+would be a complicated thing
+to get your gut microbiome right,
+but it turns out that it's fermented foods
+that seem to have the biggest effect.
+There was all this argument
+about fiber and yes,
+fiber is important and
+here I'm getting nervous
+talking about nutrition,
+'cause the people are going
+to come at me with fiber.
+But it's very clear from
+Justin and Chris's data
+that people who are
+getting four servings a day
+of fermented foods,
+whether or not it's kimchi
+or sauerkraut or kombucha,
+that stuff actually seems to encourage
+a healthy gut microbiome
+and people feel better,
+and their immune system works better.
+And I like this because it actually,
+it resolves an issue which
+is that high dose probiotics,
+these very expensive need
+to be refrigerated things,
+those actually can create brain
+fog and other issues there
+for real severe cases of dysbiosis.
+So I always like an instance
+where one can look to foods
+which are good, 'cause I like to eat,
+in order to resolve these issues.
+In terms of other neurologic issues,
+frankly, I think the stuff on dopamine
+is fundamentally important.
+So much addiction, that's a severe case,
+but also so much waxing
+and waning of motivation.
+And once you understand the
+dopamine system and you say,
+"What activities am I engaging in
+or pharmacology am I engaging in?
+What am I doing to spike dopamine?"
+You start to go, "Oh, I get it.
+The waves in this wave pool are too high
+and that's why I can't
+do this consistently."
+And then you do the counterintuitive thing
+of approaching things with
+a little less excitement,
+but then you're able to
+do them more consistently.
+It's like, "Ah!"
+And maybe with some luck, I'll
+end up finishing this book
+that I've been working on
+for four and a half years
+as a consequence 'cause I can't seem to.
+"Thinking about the Wim Hof Method.
+Do you believe it?
+How is it really working?
+What process is happening in his brain?"
+Oh, boy.
+Madison Cameron and everyone
+here probably familiar
+with Wim Hof.
+Whose occupation on Wikipedia
+used to be "Daredevil."
+That was cool.
+It's like Evel Knievel
+had it and Wim had it.
+I got a story about Wim.
+Actually in 2016, I heard
+about this guy, Wim Hof,
+and I got a hold of him,
+actually his children.
+And I had one vacation that
+year and I flew to Spain
+and I spent some time
+mountaineering with Wim,
+which was absolutely terrifying.
+I almost lost a leg legitimately.
+I tied in wrong on a bridge sling.
+He told me it was good for me.
+He told me to, "Stare
+into the lizard's eyes."
+And I stared into the lizard's eyes.
+I jumped backwards off this
+homemade bridge sling thing.
+And I had the rope wrapped through my leg
+and I came back with basically the tendon
+on the back of my knee exposed.
+And sitting next to me on the plane
+was our Vice Dean of Research at Stanford.
+And I had to explain to him
+what I was doing and why.
+It was very embarrassing.
+What did we do on that trip?
+Well, a couple of things that will help me
+answer your question.
+First of all, when I arrived,
+I suffered terribly from jet lag,
+but the moment I got there,
+Wim did not say hello.
+He literally told me to
+get into the ice bath.
+And I did 10 minutes in the
+ice bath not because I'm tough,
+but because he held me
+down in the ice bath.
+He is indeed one of the
+strongest human beings.
+He reminds me of the bus
+driver on "The Simpsons"
+or the janitor, excuse me.
+No, Otto is the bus driver, right?
+The janitor on "The Simpsons,"
+like [grunts] that guy.
+That's Wim.
+Incredibly physically strong guy.
+What do I think's going
+on with Wim Hof stuff?
+Well, Wim Hof, whether or
+not he understands it or not,
+I always think he's sort of
+the Bob Dylan of breathwork.
+Like everything he says seems
+to have some intuitive sense,
+but you don't really
+understand what in the world
+he's saying.
+[audience laughing]
+He's going to come after me now.
+We've had a good but
+complicated relationship,
+I'll just confess.
+Maybe someday we'll resolve that.
+No big scandal or story there,
+just we communicate very differently.
+Wim has a couple methods.
+One is to deliberately hyperventilate.
+This is also called Tummo breathing.
+My lab actually studies this.
+We have a paper that I'm happy
+to share with you the results
+although they're not published yet,
+where people do deliberate
+cyclic hyperventilation.
+Which as the name suggests,
+you just breathe really deeply in
+and really deeply out 25 times.
+Or if you're Wim, you'd say, "In and out.
+In and out."
+I just tell people, here's how it works.
+You go [deeply breathing].
+You do that 25 times and you heat up
+and you feel really agitated,
+and that's because of adrenaline.
+If you throw yourself into an ice bath
+or a cold shower, adrenaline.
+If somebody upsets you
+or you get a triggering text, adrenaline.
+Adrenaline sounds like a terrible thing,
+except when you deliberately induce it.
+As my colleague, David Spiegel says,
+"There's a big difference
+between going into a state
+and you controlling your
+entry into a state."
+So it's not just about
+the state you're in,
+it's about how you got
+there and whether or not
+you had anything to do with it.
+States of high adrenaline
+are very powerful.
+When you self induce
+adrenaline by cold shower,
+cyclic hyperventilation,
+AKA Wim Hof breathing
+or Tummo breathing,
+you then have an opportunity to create
+a very distinct mind-body relationship.
+We all hear that interoception
+and the mind-body relationship.
+Interoception just your ability
+to sense your heartbeats
+and what's going on in your body.
+Powerful, right?
+Terrible if how you feel sucks.
+So interoception is wonderful,
+but when you're anxious it
+actually is more adaptive
+to be able to maintain your thinking
+and get yourself out
+of that anxious state.
+So if you're trembling and
+your body's freaking out
+and your cheeks are flushing
+and your brain is following
+your bodily state,
+well, that's not good.
+And if you're somebody and sadly,
+this happens a lot where you've
+experienced a lot of trauma
+or typically this is people
+that have been bombarded
+with extreme criticism or physical abuse
+or other kinds of abuse
+during development.
+They actually can seem very calm,
+but internally they're
+freaking out in their head.
+And they're just thinking,
+just get me through this.
+And they just go into a state
+where no one knows they're upset.
+I've known people like
+this and it's eerie to me
+because I've never had
+that response to stress,
+but it's very common.
+And so we should learn and
+be careful about deciding
+that people are in one state or another
+based on their bodily or
+their mental response.
+Vim Hof breathing, cold
+showers, et cetera,
+are a great practice in my opinion,
+because they allow you
+to spike your adrenaline.
+And you can do that, for instance,
+by making the water colder
+if you want more adrenaline,
+staying in longer if you
+want more adrenaline,
+moving your limbs around in the water
+will give you more adrenaline
+'cause it breaks up that thermal layer.
+It makes it a lot colder.
+Or doing 50 deep inhales and exhales.
+That is very useful because
+then you have the opportunity
+to use that prefrontal cortex and to stop
+and sense all that adrenaline in your body
+and yet maintain clarity of mind.
+And that's an absolutely powerful tool.
+I would even call it a power tool.
+And Wim figured this out.
+I don't know if you know this,
+but the way that Wim discovered all this
+was he was in deep grief about
+the tragic death of his wife.
+She committed suicide, jumped
+off an eight story building.
+Just truly tragic death.
+And he was in situation, he
+had four children at the time.
+Now, he has five.
+And he was in a state of depression
+and he ended up going into
+the canal in Amsterdam
+and it was very cold and
+it shocked his system.
+And in that shock to his system,
+which is caused by adrenaline,
+he somehow was able to anchor his thinking
+and in kind of genius
+of sorts, Wim thought,
+"Wow, I can intervene in my physiology
+with this strange activity."
+And then he realized that
+breathing would do it as well.
+You didn't have to get into cold water.
+And then, years later, we discovered,
+not we meaning my lab, but other labs,
+that when you get into cold water,
+even just 60 degree water,
+that there's a very long
+lasting increase in dopamine.
+That is 2.5x above baseline,
+which is on par with
+some prescription drugs
+for increasing dopamine.
+So when people laugh at me and go,
+"Oh this cold water thing,"
+I get teased a lot on the internet.
+I've heard on the internet
+that I eat sticks of butter,
+which I never said.
+I said, "I like butter."
+[audience laughing]
+I've been told all sorts of things.
+I've been told I eat sticks of butter.
+I don't know why.
+I've been told that I'm dead.
+That was an interesting one.
+That was one of the cooler ones.
+But when I was going out
+there as a serious scientist
+and saying, "Using
+deliberate cold exposure."
+You can use all sorts of things.
+Or if you come to my lab,
+I'd be happy to put you in VR
+and expose you to all
+sorts of scary stuff.
+Or we can inject you with adrenaline
+or you can inject yourself with adrenaline
+and titrate that, adjust
+the levels of that.
+So it's a very powerful tool.
+And I think that Wim and
+others deserve credit
+for really tapping into that.
+And as a last point,
+there's a beautiful study
+in the Proceedings of the
+National Academy of Sciences
+years ago using this deliberate
+cyclic hyperventilation
+thing; 25 breath [deeply breathing].
+And then another group meditates.
+And then they inject
+them both with E. coli.
+And the people injected
+with E. coli who meditate
+get nauseous, vomit, diarrhea,
+and they get a fever.
+And the people who
+[deeply breathing] first,
+far fewer symptoms, if any.
+Why?
+Because adrenaline actually
+suppresses a lot of these
+innate immune responses
+in a way that's healthy
+in the short term.
+This is why you can work,
+work, work, work, work,
+where you can study for finals,
+or you can take care of a loved one
+and then you finally stop
+and rest and go on vacation,
+and then you get sick.
+Stress activates your nervous
+system and in doing so,
+it activates your immune system.
+Makes perfect sense
+when you think about it.
+How would we ever go through famine
+if you're just getting flus
+whenever you're stressed?
+We can deal with a lot.
+My suggestion is if you're coming off
+a period of high stress,
+to do some sort of
+adrenaline spiking behavior
+as you taper out of that stressful period,
+not going strictly to massage, vacation,
+and yoga nidra all day long,
+as I would reflexively do.
+"Can red light therapy help
+treat exercise intolerance
+and fatigue in mitochondrial disease?"
+Allison, I'm glad you brought this up.
+This is another case where I thought,
+"Oh no, this red light stuff is crazy."
+And then I went into the
+literature and it turns out
+that in 1908, the Nobel
+Prize was actually given
+for phototherapy.
+So, there we go again.
+And I have this slide,
+I chose not to use slides tonight,
+but I have this slide that shows Ken Kesey
+and the magic bus and
+stuff from the 1930s,
+and psychedelics and people
+getting into cold water.
+And then here we are, 2019,
+2020, you've got Wim Hof,
+and Matt Johnson giving people
+macro doses of psilocybin.
+We're right back where we were.
+And one of my major goals is to really try
+and create some scientific
+discussion around these things.
+This stuff is crazy on the face of it,
+but there are mechanisms that
+are real that underlie it.
+Red light, because it's
+long wavelength light,
+longer literally as opposed
+to a short wavelength light,
+can penetrate through things like skin
+and can indeed change mitochondria.
+One of the more impressive
+results on red light
+comes from my good
+friend, Glen Jeffery's Lab
+at the University College London.
+I've known Glen for years,
+and a few years, he was
+a basic vision scientist.
+And a few years ago he
+started using red light.
+He'd have people look at red light
+at a distance of about
+two feet in the morning.
+So is long wavelength light.
+And sometimes even just take a flashlight,
+a torch as they call it in England,
+and cover it with a red film.
+And they would look at this stuff
+for a few minutes each morning,
+and it can reverse some forms
+of age-related vision loss
+and macular degeneration.
+How we now know it can
+prove mitochondrial function
+in photoreceptors by
+reducing what are called
+reactive oxygen species.
+Here's what's interesting,
+it only seems to work
+in people older than 40,
+and it seems to only
+work if you do it within
+the first three hours of waking.
+And the incredible
+thing is you can do this
+for one or two minutes a week,
+and some of the positive effects last
+as long as three weeks.
+And it's affecting a very specific form
+of visual improvement, which is acuity,
+kind of fine detail stuff
+in a particular wavelength.
+So, particular colors
+and objects and things.
+Pretty impressive.
+So, yes, red light can
+improve mitochondrial function
+to the photo receptors.
+If you are going to try and do this stuff,
+don't put it too close.
+I don't have any affiliation
+to any red light panel company.
+So I can't say anything there.
+They are rather expensive.
+Nowadays, people are putting
+red light everywhere,
+and I do mean everywhere.
+People are putting red
+light on their stomach
+for improving ovarian function,
+whether or not it can
+penetrate isn't clear to me
+all the way down there.
+People are trying to do this.
+I have a friend, I won't name him.
+Recently, he told me he is really into
+the red light therapy.
+He's putting it on his testicles
+to try and increase testosterone.
+But he told me that after
+he handed me the red light.
+[audience laughing]
+True story.
+My team knows who this is.
+It's no one on my team.
+Thank goodness.
+I was like, "Oh, that's
+super interesting."
+I actually don't think you
+want to contact the red lights
+directly to your skin.
+So red light is powerful.
+I don't think we have, aside
+from the vision protocol,
+I don't think that it's clear
+which protocols are best.
+I will say if you're into
+red light infrared sauna.
+Typically those don't get hot enough.
+Typically if you want to
+get the benefits of sauna,
+you want to get between 80
+and 100 degrees Celsius,
+which is 176 to 210 or 208 Fahrenheit.
+And I don't actually do
+the conversion in my head.
+I memorize it.
+"You mentioned the consequences
+of blasting your brain
+with too much dopamine.
+Is it possible to overdo
+ice baths while following
+the same line of thinking?
+Will you experience an
+extreme low in dopamine
+with too many ice baths?"
+Lucas Ancke, thank you for the question.
+Any behavior that spikes adrenaline,
+you will eventually get
+better at tolerating it.
+You will become cold adapted
+and you'll become comfortable
+at high adrenaline states.
+And you just have to ask yourself this,
+it's just like lifting
+weights in the gym or running.
+You need to leave some
+space for improvement.
+So if you run, as people do,
+and you do your 5k, then you're 10k,
+then you're half marathon,
+maybe a 10k is a half marathon.
+I don't know.
+But anyway, then you're
+doing your marathon.
+Then you're doing ultras that
+are 50 miles and 100 miles.
+I mean, eventually you're going
+to start doing damage, right?
+And eventually you look
+at every ultra runner
+and typically these are
+people who are very much
+on the dopamine pursuit system.
+I mean, I don't think that he would mind;
+my good friend and a podcaster
+who I have tremendous
+respect for is Rich Roll,
+amazing human being,
+and also has an amazing
+story about addiction.
+He was an alcoholic.
+And I'm not sharing anything
+that he hasn't already shared
+in his amazing book, "Finding Ultra."
+He got really into running,
+running, running all the time
+and there's a dopamine
+history there for him.
+Some of us can use ice
+baths so consistently
+and making it so cold and
+doing them longer and longer
+that indeed you're playing
+with the dopamine system.
+Is it bad?
+Well, it depends on what
+you're trading that in for,
+at the expense of what?
+Is it giving up cocaine?
+Yeah, great, stick with the ice bath.
+But you know, can only make it so cold
+and you can only stay in there so long
+before you become Wim Hof, right?
+And it worked out for Wim,
+but there's really only one Wim Hof.
+And in general, that
+speaks to a larger theme,
+which is I love the idea
+of people using tools
+and understanding mechanism.
+I mean, of course I love that.
+It's what I talk about and
+think about so much in my life.
+But for most of us,
+we don't make a living doing those things.
+And so I do think that the ideal situation
+is to have behaviors and
+tools that you intersperse
+throughout your day and
+throughout the week.
+For instance, I think
+three times a week is fine
+for the ice bath.
+No one said you had to do it every day,
+but you should see sunlight
+every morning if you can.
+Just because if you miss a
+day, your system will be fine,
+just spend twice as long
+outside the next day.
+Seriously, 'cause it's a
+slow integrating system.
+But for most of these
+high intensity things,
+the less often you do them,
+the more powerful they are.
+In fact, if you get into a very hot sauna
+for four 30 minute sessions on one day.
+So you go 30 minutes,
+get out for five minutes.
+30 minutes, get out for five minutes.
+30 minutes, get out for five.
+Two hours a day in the
+sauna, that's a lot of sauna,
+but the growth hormone release
+from that type of protocol
+is a 16x increase in growth hormone.
+This has been measured in humans.
+Whereas if you do it every day
+or three or four times a week,
+you get diminishing returns on that.
+So I actually am a big fan
+of doing really intense stuff
+only every once in a while.
+This is also why I only
+take one long run per week
+or one long hike.
+First of all, I don't have time for it.
+I'm not an ultra runner.
+I got other things to do.
+And second of all, it's a strong stimulus.
+I'm sore until Tuesday,
+or I don't want to run
+until Tuesday anyway.
+I actually think that's fine.
+And I actually encourage
+kind of more healthy,
+rational schedules of
+these kinds of behaviors.
+There's no rule that says
+you have to do something
+every day, even if you're trying
+to engage neuroplasticity.
+You can learn French or an
+instrument by practicing
+three times a week.
+As long as your practice
+is very focused, right?
+Daily perhaps would be better,
+but very few of us have the opportunity
+to do things every day consistently.
+And I really want to encourage
+a more balanced approach.
+"Before working for
+Thrasher, what's the best..."
+Oh, goodness gracious.
+The skateboarders are always in the house.
+My first non-biological family
+was a skateboarding community.
+When I have great relationship
+with my parents now,
+but because there was a
+time when there was no one
+to go to soccer games
+or do any of that stuff,
+the skateboard community took me in
+'cause there were no parents involved.
+It was great.
+There were no referees or coaches
+'cause I didn't like
+authority and it was awesome.
+And there was no nutritional plan.
+You drank your slurpy
+and you sat on the curb,
+and it was fantastic.
+I don't do that anymore.
+But the skateboarding community's
+one that I've remained close with.
+I did write for Thrasher
+under a different name
+while I was a postdoc
+to make some extra cash.
+You won't find those
+articles anywhere, I hope.
+They're not very good.
+And the best skate trick?
+Well, I was involved in it
+enough that this will only
+makes sense like three
+people in the audience,
+but I had decent heel flip.
+I could nollie better than I could ollie.
+And I was never very good.
+Oh, there's more
+skateboarders in the audience.
+What I will say though,
+is you have to be very
+careful with skateboarders,
+'cause I don't want to
+claim that I was any good.
+Any success that I had was
+out of sympathy of others
+for letting me hang around.
+It's a great community.
+And it gave me great
+appreciation for indeed
+communities of kids that
+don't have structure
+and sports leagues and teams
+and all that kind of stuff.
+Nowadays, it's actually a
+much different landscape.
+And I have to also say that
+it's really amazing to see
+all the incredible girls and
+women skateboarders also.
+There were none.
+It's an Olympic sport
+now for women and girls,
+and it's an Olympic sport
+for boys of men too.
+So, it's awesome to see that community.
+Okay, "What are your favorite brain hacks
+for doing hard things?
+Ranging from cold exposure to
+getting through selection?"
+Hoby Darling, thanks for the question.
+Yeah, hard things.
+Well, I'll be honest.
+I learned how to hack
+into my adrenaline system
+a long time ago through the
+worst possible mechanism,
+which is that I would set
+up battles in my mind.
+I would get into competition
+with people, imagined or real,
+or I would get into states of
+fearing shame and screwing up.
+So, this is what a lot
+of people do I think,
+you end up scaring
+yourself into trying to do
+the hard thing, and it works.
+The problem is it feels
+rather like a downward spiral
+because those negative states of mind
+work to liberate adrenaline and
+get you through hard things.
+So being a kind of rebellious
+kid, resistance was...
+If someone told me I couldn't
+do something, I was like,
+"Yeah, try me" and this kind of thing.
+And as I mentioned before, I
+wasn't crazy about authority.
+And so, that was the
+method for a long time.
+And then, I started reading
+Oliver Sacks's books
+and I started learning
+from people who seemed
+to access things through
+this whole love thing.
+And I tried that love and
+kindness meditation thing,
+and that didn't work.
+And what I started doing was I actually,
+I'll just tell you before
+I came out here tonight
+and before I do anything challenging,
+I just actually like to imagine the people
+that have supported me.
+It's a weird tool.
+I don't think I've ever shared.
+I'm actually slightly
+embarrassed to share this out.
+'Cause there are only two
+things that make me cry,
+and that's talking about my bulldog
+and talking about my graduate advisor.
+And if I talk it about any
+longer, I'll probably cry.
+But I think about them a lot
+because they were kind of similar.
+They were kind of ornery
+and they were hard on me,
+and I adored them both.
+And so these days I try
+and think about people
+that really, that I love.
+And so I have been trying
+to do this whole, like,
+doing things from a place of love thing.
+And so, for me, that's animals
+and people that I love.
+And okay, now, I better move on.
+Ah, thank you.
+[audience applauding]
+Okay, they're telling
+me one more question.
+So I'm going to answer one more.
+"What do I fear?
+How do you manage your fear?"
+KB, oh, gosh.
+This is going to turn into a
+no one's going to be satisfied
+until I cry.
+I get it, I get it.
+[audience laughing]
+I do cry, but again about the
+things I mentioned before.
+I realized something, by the way.
+We just recorded an episode on grief.
+It hasn't come out yet.
+Fascinating topic.
+I realized at one point, by the way,
+I'll just give this away,
+that I thought I was really
+sad about losing them.
+I thought I would tear up really easily
+because I was sad about them.
+But then I realized that this,
+gosh, I can't believe
+I'm going to do this.
+But I realized that
+feeling that I was feeling
+is the exact same feeling of love
+that I had when they were alive.
+So, grief is love.
+And when you look at the literature,
+it's basically that, but
+your brain is freaking out
+because that map of knowing
+where people are in space
+and time, grief is basically
+a remapping of the space:
+Where are they?
+Time: When are they?
+And then, this kind of
+abstract map representation
+that we call closeness.
+And grief is this process of
+ripping ourselves off of that.
+So, in any event, what do I fear?
+Talking about things like this.
+What do I fear?
+Quite honestly, my biggest fear,
+the thing that would just
+make me feel just horrible
+is I fear letting down my friends.
+I have an amazing...
+I love my family and they're wonderful,
+but I have this incredible
+relationship to friendship,
+and I adore my friends
+and I would sooner give up
+all my limbs and die before I would
+deliberately let them down.
+So, there you go, that's what I fear most.
+[audience applauding]
+Thank you.
+Thank you.
+I also fear I've gone long.
+And so my team has shut this down.
+I just want to just briefly, two things.
+First of all, I of course
+want to thank everyone
+for coming here tonight.
+I realize it's the middle of the week
+and to commit some hours of your life
+to thinking about these brain mechanisms,
+we got pretty nerdy there for a minute,
+and hopefully the tools redeemed those
+who were only interested
+or mostly interested
+in practical tools,
+but hopefully some of the
+insights about how you work
+were useful as well.
+I do want to just make brief
+mention of the sponsors
+that made this possible, 'cause
+they did make this possible.
+And we made every effort to
+try and keep the ticket prices
+manageable for people.
+And thanks to InsideTracker and Momentous
+for making this possible.
+And then, of course I
+would be completely remiss
+if I didn't say thank you
+for your interest in science.
+[audience applauding]
+[audience cheering]
+Thank you.
+Thank you.
+Oh, wow, thank you.
+Thank you.
+Thank you.
+Thank you.
+[light music]
+Thanks so much.
+Everyone be sure to get
+home safely tonight.

Data/transcripts/6YLdlK2hYnw_20241225194328.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+I don't want to use the word happy.
+I want to see you joyful.
+Joy.
+Joy is more important than happiness.
+Joy is a state of mind.
+Happiness is okay,
+yeah, I said a list of
+things I want to have,
+and I have them, and I smile a lot.
+Joyfulness is this sense
+of being in yourself,
+and I would like that.
+I would personally like
+to see you enjoying today
+and this weekend, and that's it,
+and everything else is
+going to come to you.

Data/transcripts/C3X0bUAiluE_20241225194259.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+There are a lot of
+studies now really showing
+pretty significant
+effects of e-cigarette use
+on heart and lungs.
+Not only all the
+chemicals we've mentioned,
+but also the flavorants.
+There's cinnamon aldehyde,
+another aldehyde,
+there's vanillin, there's
+the buttery flavor
+that's in there is also a lot of concern.
+You then take it and really
+inhale the resulting aerosol,
+and then we're seeing
+the lesions on the lungs.
+We're seeing young people who
+have been using e-cigarettes
+having lung collapses, pneumonia,
+asthma amongst people
+who've not had, seizures.
+One of the teens I know who
+was using four pods a day
+was having seizures.
+Makes sense because
+nicotine is a stimulant.
+Yes.
+So it can cause runaway
+excitability in the brain
+if too much is taken.
+So if that's happening
+in the living child,
+that can't be good.
+Yeah.
+That can't be good.
+That can't be good.
+Lungs, bloodstream,
+everything.
+And all the aldehydes
+are carcinogens.
+Correct.
+We know they cause cancer.
+Right, right.
+And so that's why there's
+a lot of concern there.

Data/transcripts/CuzL1qxUyHw_20241225194312.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+You have all these voices
+that are telling you you're fucked up,
+and this is going to be hard.
+But for some reason, you put
+so much practice into you
+that you can ignore every one of 'em
+that are telling you you're
+not going to fucking make it
+and still be able to fucking make it
+because you have put the practice in
+that you know this is the process.
+It's such a daunting task that
+all the voices are saying no,
+but you still had the conviction that,
+"I know I can do this,"
+and that's what it took
+for me to get here.
+When you put that practice in,
+every day you lace 'em up...
+And I don't mean run. It's
+just a metaphor for life.
+When you lace them
+motherfuckers up every day,
+pretty soon you win.
+You have the courage and
+the heart and the dedication
+and the mindset about everybody
+can go fuck themselves.
+I know what I know.
+I've listened to myself enough
+to know I know what I know.
+None of you can hear what I'm hearing.
+And that's what people don't do enough of.
+They don't listen to their journey.
+They listen to everybody else's shit.
+You're not looking at the
+truth in front of you.
+The truth in front of you is it sucks.
+This is what it takes,
+creating another voice
+and sometimes going at it alone.

Data/transcripts/DtmwtjOoSYU_20241225194633.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,2737 @@
+- [Andrew Huberman] Welcome
+to the Huberman Lab Podcast
+where we discuss science
+and science-based tools
+for everyday life.
+- I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology
+and Ophthalmology at
+Stanford School of Medicine.
+Today I have the pleasure of introducing
+Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
+Dr. Sapolsky is a Professor of Biology
+and Neurosurgery at Stanford University.
+His laboratory has worked on
+a large variety of topics,
+including stress, hormones,
+including testosterone and estrogen,
+and how the different members
+of a given species interact
+according to factors like hormones,
+hierarchy within primate troops,
+and how things like stress, reproduction
+and competition impact behavior.
+One of the things that
+makes Dr. Sapolsky's work
+so unique is that it combines
+elements from primatology,
+including field studies
+with human behavior,
+in essence trying to unveil how
+humans as old world primates
+are controlled by different
+elements of our biology
+as well as our psychology.
+Dr. Sapolsky is also a prolific
+author of popular books,
+such as "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers",
+"The Trouble with Testosterone",
+and "Behave: The Biology of
+Humans at Our Best and Worst".
+During the course of our discussion today,
+Robert also revealed to me
+that he is close to completing
+a new book entitled,
+"Determined: The Science
+of Life Without Freewill."
+And indeed we discuss the science of life
+without freewill during this episode.
+We also discuss stress and
+how best to control stress
+and how stress controls us at both,
+conscious and subconscious levels.
+We talk about testosterone and estrogen
+and hormone replacement therapy
+and how those impact
+our mind, our psychology
+and our interactions with others.
+As with any discussion with Dr. Sapolsky,
+we learn about scientific mechanisms
+that make us who we are.
+And today we also discuss tools
+and how we can leverage
+those scientific mechanisms
+in order to be better
+versions of ourselves.
+I should mention that
+unlike most guest interviews
+on the Huberman Lab podcast,
+this one had to be carried out remotely
+due to various constraints,
+so you may hear the
+occasional audio artifact,
+please excuse that.
+We felt that the value of a
+conversation with Dr. Sapolsky
+was well-worth those
+minor, minor glitches.
+And indeed the information
+that he delivers us
+is tremendously valuable, interesting,
+and in many cases actionable as well.
+Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
+that this podcast is
+separate from my teaching
+and research roles at Stanford.
+It is, however, part of my desire
+and effort to bring zero
+cost to consumer information
+about science and science related tools
+to the general public.
+In keeping with that theme,
+I'd like to thank the
+sponsors of today's podcast.
+Our first sponsor is ROKA,
+ROKA makes sunglasses and eyeglasses
+that are of the absolute highest quality.
+The company was founded by
+two All-American swimmers from Stanford,
+and everything about the
+design of the sunglasses
+and eyeglasses was created
+with performance in mind.
+There are several things I like
+about ROKA glasses so much.
+One of them is that the aesthetic
+of the glasses is great.
+Unlike a lot of performance
+glasses out there
+that you can wear while swimming
+and running but also indoors,
+these glasses don't make
+you look like a cyborg.
+The aesthetic of them is really terrific,
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+In addition to that, the
+quality of the lenses
+on both the sunglasses
+and eyeglasses are superb.
+The optical clarity is great,
+you can move from brightly
+lit areas to shadowed areas,
+and you don't get any degradation
+in the quality of the visual image.
+And that's absolutely essential.
+If you'd like to try ROKA glasses,
+you can go to roka.com and
+enter the code Huberman
+to save 20% off your first order.
+That's ROKA.com and enter the
+code Huberman at checkout.
+Today's podcast is also
+brought to us by InsideTracker.
+InsideTracker is a
+personalized nutrition platform
+that analyzes data from your blood
+and DNA to help you better
+understand your body
+and help you reach your health goals.
+I've long been a believer
+in getting regular blood work done.
+And now with the advent
+of quality DNA tests,
+you can get a lot of
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+and how that also impacts your immediate
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+The reason I'm such a fan of
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+only way to understand
+what's going on in your system at a level
+that can really inform your decisions
+about your immediate and long-term health.
+The problem with a lot of
+blood and DNA tests, however,
+is that you get numbers
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+and your metabolic factors, etc.,
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+that can help you move those
+numbers in the direction
+that's best for you and for your health.
+If you'd like to try InsideTracker,
+you can go to InsideTracker.com/Huberman
+to get 25% off
+any of InsideTracker plans,
+just use the code Huberman at checkout.
+Today's podcast is also
+brought to us by Belcampo.
+Belcampo is a regenerative
+farm in Northern California
+that raises organic grass-fed
+and finished certified humane meats.
+I eat meat about once a day,
+in general my lunch or my
+breakfast consists of some meat,
+and that meat has to be
+of very high-quality,
+and generally I'll eat
+some vegetable as well.
+And then I tend to eat pastas and rice
+and things of that sort later
+in the day or in the evening
+in order to facilitate
+the transition to sleep.
+So I'm eating meat about once a day,
+and I always insist
+that the meat that I eat
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+I'm partial to the ribeyes
+or the New York steaks,
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+the next day I might
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+I also really like the meatballs,
+I'm a particular fan of the meatballs.
+So, again, that's Belcampo.com/Huberman
+and enter the code Huberman
+at checkout to get 20% off your order.
+And now without further ado,
+my conversation with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
+Great, well, thank you so much,
+Robert, for joining us today.
+I've been looking forward
+to this for a very long time
+and I appreciate it.
+- Oh yes, glad to be here.
+- There is an enormous range of topics
+that we could drill into,
+but just to start off,
+I want to return to a topic that is
+near and dear to your
+heart, which is stress.
+And one of the questions
+that I get most commonly is,
+what is the difference between
+short and long-term stress
+in terms of their benefits
+and their drawbacks?
+And the reason I say benefits is that,
+obviously stress and the stress
+response can keep us alive,
+but stress, of course, can
+also sharpen our mental acuity
+and things of that sort.
+So how should we conceptualize stress
+and how should we conceptualize stress
+in the short-term and in the long-term?
+- Well, basically sort of two
+graphs that one would draw.
+The first one is just all
+sorts of beneficial effects
+of stress short-term,
+and then once we get into chronicity,
+it's just downhill from there.
+Short-term because it saves
+you from the predator,
+short-term because you're
+giving a presentation
+and you think more clearly
+or your focus is better,
+all sorts of aspects of that.
+And what then winds up
+being an argument is,
+how long does it take to go
+from short-term to long-term?
+And that's somewhat arbitrary,
+but the sorts of chronic stressors
+that most people deal
+with are just undeniably
+in the chronic range, like
+having spent the last 20 years,
+daily traffic jams or abusive
+boss or some such thing.
+The other curve that's sort
+of perpendicular to this
+is dealing with the fact
+that sometimes stress is a great thing.
+Like our goal is not to
+cure people of stress
+because if it's a right kind, we love it.
+We pay good money to be stressed that way
+by a scary movie or a rollercoaster ride.
+What you wind up seeing is
+when it's the right amount of stress,
+it's what we call stimulation.
+And the basic curve there is,
+here is an optimal level of
+stimulation and too little,
+and function goes down with
+what we would call boredom,
+and too much and function goes down
+with what we would call stress.
+And the optimum is what all of us aim for.
+- In terms of the benefits
+of stress in the short-term,
+one thing that's really striking to me is,
+how physiologically the stress response
+looks so much like the excitement response
+to a positive event.
+And we can speculate that
+the fundamental difference
+between short-term stress
+and short-term excitement
+is some neuromodulator like
+dopamine or something like that.
+But is there anything else that we know
+about the biology that reveals to us?
+What really creates this
+thing we call valence
+that an experience can be
+terrible or feel awful,
+or it can feel wonderful,
+exhilarating depending on
+this somewhat subjective
+feature we call valence?
+Do we know what valence
+is or where it resides?
+- On a really mechanical level,
+if you're in a circumstance
+that is requiring
+that your heart races and
+you're breathing as fast
+and you're using your
+muscles and some such thing,
+you're going to to be
+having roughly the same
+brain activation profile,
+whether this is for something wonderful
+or something terrible with
+the one exception being
+that if the amygdala is
+part of the activation,
+this is something that's going
+to be counting as adverse.
+Whether that's the circumstance,
+an adverse circumstance
+recruiting the amygdala into it,
+and how much it's the
+amygdala being involved,
+biases you towards interpreting
+it as even more awful.
+The amygdala in some ways
+is kind of the checkpoint
+as to whether we're talking
+about excitement or terror.
+- Let's use the amygdala
+as a transition point
+to another topic that you've
+spent many years working on
+and thinking about, which is testosterone
+and other sex steroid hormones.
+I heard you say once before that
+among all the brain areas
+that bind testosterone,
+that where testosterone
+can park and create effects
+that the amygdala is among
+the most chockablock full
+of these parking spots,
+these receptors.
+I realize there's a lot here,
+but how should we think
+about the role of
+testosterone in the amygdala
+given that the engagement of
+the amygdala is fundamental
+in this transition point
+between a exhilarating,
+positive response and a
+negative stressful response?
+Or maybe just broadly,
+how should we think about testosterone
+and its effects on the brain?
+- And pertinent to the transition from
+whether this is a stressor
+that's evoking fear
+or revoking aggression in
+terms of that continuum,
+also because the amygdala
+is in the center of all
+four points on those axes.
+Basically, almost everybody out there
+has a completely wrong idea
+as to what testosterone does,
+which is testosterone makes you aggressive
+because males, virtually
+every species out there
+have more testosterone
+and a more aggressive
+and seasonal measures
+have testosterone surging
+at the time of year, they're
+punching it out over territory.
+And you take testosterone
+out of the picture,
+you castrate any mammal
+out there, including us,
+and levels of aggression will go down.
+And the easy thing then tends to conclude
+that testosterone causes aggression.
+And the reality is testosterone
+does no such thing,
+it doesn't cause aggression.
+And you can see this both
+behaviorally and in the amygdala.
+What does testosterone do?
+It lowers the threshold
+for the sort of things
+that would normally provoke
+you into being [mumbles]
+so that it happens more easily.
+It makes systems that are
+already turned on, turn on louder
+rather than turning on aggressive
+music or some such thing.
+What does that look like behaviorally?
+You take five male
+monkeys, put them together,
+they form a dominance hierarchy.
+Number one is great,
+number five is miserable,
+number three is right in between.
+Now take number three
+and shoot the guy up
+with tons of testosterone
+and he's going to be
+involved in more fights.
+Aha, testosterone uniformly
+causes aggression,
+but you look closely and
+there's a pattern to it,
+is number three now
+challenging numbers two and one
+for their place in the hierarchy.
+Absolutely not, he is brown-nosing them
+exactly as much as he used to.
+What's going on is he's
+just a miserable terror
+to poor number four and five.
+And in that case, what
+testosterone is doing
+is amplifying the preexisting
+patterns of aggression.
+Amplifying the social learning,
+that's where it'd gone into there.
+Now on sort of the more reductive level,
+so how does that translate
+into the amygdala?
+Does testosterone make amygdaloid neurons
+have action potentials?
+Does it cause those
+neurons to suddenly speak
+about fear and aggression spontaneously?
+Absolutely not.
+What they do is,
+if the amygdala is
+already being stimulated,
+it increases the rate of neuronal firing.
+What its worth?
+It shortens after-hyperpolarizations.
+So the theme there exactly is,
+it's not creating your aggression,
+it's just upping the volume of
+whatever aggression is already there.
+And once you factor that in,
+it's impossible to say anything
+about what testosterone does
+outside the context of what
+testosterone related behaviors,
+how they get treated [laughs]
+in your social settings.
+- Mm-hmm, yeah.
+And in terms of status
+and the relationship
+between individuals, either
+nonhuman primates or humans,
+can we say that testosterone
+and levels of testosterone?
+Or I should say, can we say
+that relative levels of
+testosterone between individuals
+is correlated to status
+within the hierarchy?
+- Yes, but in a way that winds up
+being totally uninteresting.
+Like you go back on
+whatever number of decades,
+the endocrinology texts,
+and there were two totally
+reliable findings in there.
+Let's see, I have a dog in here that's-
+- Oh, good, we like dogs at
+the Huberman Lab podcast.
+- Oh, okay, it is jingling with that.
+- They are welcome, they are
+absolutely welcome, yeah.
+- And there'd be two truisms,
+which is higher levels of testosterone
+predict higher levels of aggression
+in humans and other animals.
+Higher levels of testosterone
+predict higher levels of sexual activity.
+Whoa, testosterone causing both,
+and the correlation is there.
+And when you look closely, we've
+got cause and effect stuff,
+sexual behavior raises
+testosterone levels,
+aggression raises testosterone levels.
+Your levels before had
+were barely predictive
+of what's going to happen,
+so it's a response rather than a cause.
+When you look at that though
+in terms of making sense
+of individual differences,
+they don't matter a whole lot.
+You can spend an entire career
+on the social circumstances
+that produce 3.5% more
+testosterone in the circulation,
+and expect to see all sorts
+of interesting implications.
+And that's not really the case,
+it's somewhat of a yes or no modulator
+of the much more subtle social
+stuff that's already there.
+- Very interesting.
+I think that there are
+a lot of misconceptions
+about human biology, but
+testosterone seems to be one area
+where at least from what I
+can find on the internet,
+it's sort of at the peak
+of misunderstanding.
+Maybe we could just ask
+a few more questions
+about testosterone and sexual behavior
+because there's an interesting story there
+about castration versus non-castration
+and the causality, again.
+But before you address that,
+I just want to highlight
+something that you said
+that I think is so vital,
+which is that behaviors,
+such as aggressive behaviors
+and sexual behaviors
+can actually increase testosterone.
+Did I hear that correctly?
+- Yeah.
+- And the reverse is sort of
+true, but not in a causal way.
+Is that right?
+- The opposite direction
+of the causality, yeah.
+- Yeah, yeah, so if I were to increase
+somebody's testosterone by 30%,
+male or female doesn't matter,
+their sexual behavior
+may or may not change.
+- Essentially zero effect at all.
+Your brain is not that sensitive
+to fluctuations in testosterone levels.
+In terms of things like aggression,
+raising testosterone,
+this is a great footnote.
+If you have the right type of
+willing to die on the trenches
+devotion sort of thing,
+watching your favorite team play a sport
+will raise your testosterone levels
+as you sit there with the
+potato chips in your armchair.
+So it's not the physicality of aggression,
+it's the psychological framing of it.
+So, yeah, testosterone
+is not causing that.
+And a great way to appreciate that is,
+okay, so you had all these testosterone
+sexual behavior correlations,
+and you do the definitive
+endocrine intervention,
+which is you do a subtraction study,
+you've removed the testes.
+And as I said before, levels
+of sexual behavior goes down.
+Good, we've just shown
+that testosterone is
+somehow have caused it.
+Critically they go down,
+but not down to zero,
+whether you are a rat or a
+monkey or a human, whatever.
+And what predicts how much residual
+sexual behavior is there,
+how much sexual behavior
+there was before castration?
+What that's telling you is by then
+that's behavior that's being
+carried by social learning
+and context rather than by the hormone,
+exact same thing with aggression.
+Drops after castration,
+doesn't go to zero,
+the more prior history of it,
+the more it just keeps
+coasting along on its own
+even without testosterone.
+- Very interesting.
+Can we say that there is an exception
+in terms of the early
+organizing effects of hormones?
+Like, for instance, if a
+developing animal is deprived of
+a testosterone or estrogen
+or aromatized testosterone into estrogen,
+there's a whole story there is, you know.
+But then I could imagine that
+the circuits of the brain
+that are responsible for
+initiating sexual behavior
+in the first place might not emerge,
+and therefore not be sensitive
+to the testosterone later in life.
+Is that right?
+Okay.
+- Yeah, exactly.
+And a great way of seeing that
+is this totally nutty biological factoid,
+which is the second to
+fourth digit ratio enhanced.
+- Oh yeah.
+- Totally obscure thing, the
+ratio of one to the other
+in some way reflects
+levels of testosterone,
+androgen exposure during fetal life.
+And I can't remember which
+way it goes and it's minuscule
+and you need a thousand
+people in your sample size
+to be able to see anything,
+but you see it in other primates,
+it's already there in fetal
+sonograms, all of that.
+So that's a readout of subtle differences
+in prenatal exposure,
+and that winds up being a
+predictor of a whole range of
+sort of stuff in adult behavior.
+So, yeah, at the fetal end,
+when you're still building everything,
+testosterone and the amount of that
+is making a huge difference.
+By the time you're an adult,
+it's just somewhat of
+an old and a non-signal.
+- Yeah, I have a confession,
+which is that I was a
+master's student at Berkeley
+in Marc Breedlove's arena, so
+I'm an author on that paper,
+although I'm deep within the author line,
+and you got the description
+of it exactly right
+that it's the D2, the index
+finger to the ring finger ratio
+is more similar in females
+than it is in males.
+In males, the index finger
+tends to be shorter.
+And for people out there
+who are listening to this
+who are now freaking out or measuring,
+that there is a proper way
+to measure this, which is,
+eyeballing it doesn't work all the time
+unless at the extremes.
+And there's some very
+interesting stories there.
+It actually has been replicated
+no fewer than five times,
+Marc Breedlove tells me.
+But yes, in terms of these
+early organizing effects,
+those seem very robust in most studies.
+These later effects are
+sort of activation of
+neural circuits by hormones.
+I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
+And I do have a couple other questions,
+which is, we normally associate
+testosterone with males,
+but of course, females
+make testosterone as well
+from the adrenals and
+presumably elsewhere too.
+I'm guessing if we looked hard enough,
+we'd probably find that
+there were other sources
+of androgens in females.
+Can we say
+that these general contours
+of effects on aggression
+also pertain to females?
+And I suppose I should ask in particular
+about female-female aggression,
+which does exist in many species,
+female-male agregression as
+well as maternal aggression,
+which is a robust aspect of
+our evolution, of course,
+that the mother will,
+an angry mother animal
+of any kind protecting her
+young is truly dangerous,
+in the best sense of the word.
+- And that type of post-parturition,
+period after birth aggression
+is all about estrogen,
+progesterone, those sorts of things.
+Female aggression, the rest of the time
+has testosterone as a major
+player at a much lower level
+on the average.
+On the average, one always has to say,
+but it's basically the same punchlines.
+In females, the lower levels
+of testosterone are essential
+for typical levels of
+aggression and sexual behavior.
+Nonetheless, they're not causing it,
+it's not sensitive to small
+individual differences.
+Same exact thing.
+You can get way over-impressed
+with the importance of
+androgens in females
+just as readily as in males.
+- So in line with that,
+how should we conceptualize testosterone?
+I realize there isn't a single sentence
+that can capture a
+hormone in all its effects
+because hormones have
+so many different slow
+and fast effects on the brain,
+on other glands on their own,
+on the very glands that produce them.
+But as I've heard you talk
+about testosterone today
+and over the years, I
+start to get the impression
+that as the most misunderstood molecule
+[laughs] in human health in the universe,
+it's clearly doing
+something very powerful.
+It's shifting the way that
+certain neural circuits work,
+adjusting the gain on the
+amygdala, as you described,
+and certainly other things as well.
+Is there any truism
+about testosterone like,
+and its relationship to effort
+or its relationship to resilience,
+and in a way that maybe will
+help me and other people
+to sort of think about how
+to think about testosterone?
+- Yeah.
+Maybe three separate answers to that.
+The first one is, I think
+it's a fair summary to think
+that when it comes to
+motivated strong behaviors,
+what testosterone does is make you
+more of whatever you already are.
+And that to me, sexual arousal,
+libido, aggressiveness,
+spontaneous aggression,
+reactive aggression, things of that sort.
+It's upping the volume of things
+that are already strongly there.
+Second way to think about it is,
+well, here's like my favorite
+finding about testosterone.
+And this was some wonderful
+work by a guy, John Wingfield,
+who's one of the best behavioral
+endocrinologists out there.
+And about 20 years ago he
+formulated what was called
+The Challenge Hypothesis
+of Testosterone in Action.
+What does testosterone do?
+Testosterone is what you secrete
+when your status is being challenged,
+and it makes it more likely that you'll do
+the behaviors needed to
+hold onto your status.
+Okay, so that's totally
+boringly straightforward
+if you are a baboon.
+If somebody is challenging your high rank,
+the appropriate response on your part
+is going to be aggression.
+All right, so we've just got
+in through the back door,
+testosterone and aggression, again.
+But then you get to humans,
+and humans have lots of
+different ways of achieving
+or maintaining status.
+And all you need to do is go to like some
+fancy private school's annual auction,
+and you will see all these
+half-drunk alpha males
+competing to see who can
+give the most money away
+as a show of conspicuous like
+property that they have.
+And in a setting like that, I mean,
+I haven't been able to take urine samples,
+if there's times, unfortunately,
+but that shows the flip side of it.
+If you have a species
+that hands out status
+in a very different sort of way,
+testosterone is going to boost that also.
+Okay, so that generates a
+totally nutty prediction.
+Wow, take people in a circumstance,
+say playing an economic game
+where you get status by being trustworthy
+and being generous in your
+interactions with the game.
+If you give people testosterone,
+does that make them more generous?
+And that's absolutely the case.
+Totally cool finding.
+I'm showing you, I don't know,
+basically if you took a
+whole bunch of Buddhist monks
+and shot them up with testosterone,
+they'd get all competitive with each other
+as to who could do the most
+random acts of kindness.
+And if we have a societal
+problem with too much aggression,
+the first culprit to look
+at is not testosterone,
+the first to look at is
+that we hand out so much
+damn elevated status
+for aggression in so many circumstances.
+So I find that finding to be fantastic.
+Third thing about
+subtlety of testosterone.
+Okay, so like some subtler
+behavioral effects,
+you give testosterone to people
+and they become more confident,
+they become more self-confident.
+Well, that's good, people pay to take
+all sorts of nonsensical self-help courses
+that will boost your self-esteem.
+And that's a good thing
+unless testosterone
+makes you more confident,
+that is inaccurate,
+and you're more likely to
+barrel into wrong decisions.
+What's shown in economic game
+play is that testosterone
+by making you more confident
+makes you less cooperative
+because who needs to cooperate
+because I'm on top of this all on my own.
+Testosterone makes people
+cocky and impulsive.
+And that might be great in one setting,
+but if and the other is,
+you're absolutely sure your army is to
+get over on the other
+country in three days.
+So hell, let's start World War I,
+and you get a big surprise out of it.
+Testosterone altering
+risk assessment beforehand
+probably played a big role in
+that kind of miscalculation.
+- Super-interesting.
+I always think about testosterone
+and dopamine being close
+cousins in the brain,
+not just because of their relationship
+through the pituitary and hypothalamus.
+That, of course, but also because
+of dopamine's salient role
+in creating this bias
+towards exteroception.
+When somebody takes a drug,
+with it increases dopamine,
+or they're chockablock full of dopamine.
+They tend, I want to highlight 'tend'
+because this is, I'm
+really generalizing here,
+but they tend to focus on outward goals,
+things beyond the
+boundaries of their skin.
+And testosterone seems
+to do a bit of the same,
+it tends to put us into a similar mode of
+perceiving the outside world in ways
+that we're asking questions like,
+how do I relate to this
+other of my species?
+How do I relate to these goals?
+Is there anything that we can
+do to better conceptualize
+the relationship between testosterone
+and dopamine and motivation?
+Or would that just take
+us down the alleyways of,
+of neural pathways and the hypothalamus?
+Which is fine too.
+- Well, I think it's got lots to do with
+sort of this massive
+revisionism about dopamine.
+Everyone, since the pharaohs
+got brought up being taught
+that dopamine is about
+pleasure and reward.
+It turns out it isn't, it's
+about anticipation of reward,
+and it's about generating the motivation,
+the goal-directed behavior
+needed to go get that reward.
+And before you know it, you're
+using like elevated dopamine,
+your entire life to motivate you to do
+whatever is going to get
+you like entry into heaven
+after-life kind of, it's
+doing that sort of thing.
+So it's really about the motivation.
+And what testosterone
+does even in individuals
+who are not aggressive and
+why testosterone replacement
+is often a very helpful
+thing for aging males is
+it increases energy, it
+increases a sense of thereness,
+a presence of alertness
+that increases motivation.
+So that's a whole aspect,
+which then takes us into
+is your motivation to get up and like go,
+hand out lots of soup in a soup
+kitchen for homeless people,
+or is it to get up and go
+ethnically cleanse a village.
+It's got much to do with
+what your makeup was
+before the testosterone got onboard.
+So it's activating in an energetic sense,
+testosterone within minutes
+increases glucose uptake
+into skeletal muscle.
+You're just more awake
+and alert and all of that,
+and that has a lot to do
+with what dopamine does.
+And as one might predict then,
+getting just the right
+levels of testosterone
+infused into your bloodstream
+feels great to lab rats.
+They will lever press to
+get infused into the range
+that optimizes dopamine release.
+So there is, you are absolutely right,
+they're deeply intertwined.
+- Yeah, such beautiful biology there.
+And I love the way you
+encapsulate their relationship.
+I want to ask about estrogen,
+we don't hear about estrogen as often,
+and it's always
+interesting to me now doing
+some public facing education,
+that testosterone is this
+very controversial molecule,
+just to say it is almost
+controversial. [laughs]
+[Robert laughs]
+But estrogen doesn't seem
+to hold the same controversial weight,
+and yet estrogen has a
+very powerful effects
+on both the animal brain
+and on the human brain
+of males and females.
+Men do not want their
+estrogen to go too low.
+Terrible things happen, they
+will lose cognitive function,
+libido can drop.
+So men need estrogen as well,
+but perhaps maybe we can put
+the same filter on estrogen
+as we did on testosterone.
+Are there any general themes of estrogen
+that people should be aware of
+or that you think that are
+generally misunderstood?
+Is it really all about
+feelings and empathy
+and making us more sensitive?
+I sense not.
+- No, and it's once again
+very context dependent.
+And if estrogen after giving
+birth is playing a central role
+in you wanting to shred
+the face of somebody
+getting too close to your
+kittens kind of thing,
+we know it's not just warm,
+fuzzy, empathic kind of stuff.
+Estrogen in lots of ways
+could be summarized by,
+if you've got a choice in the matter
+between having a lot of estrogen
+in your bloodstream or not,
+go for having a lot of estrogen.
+It enhances cognition,
+exactly as you said,
+it stimulates neurogenesis
+in the hippocampus,
+it increases glucose and oxygen delivery,
+it protects you from dementia,
+it decreases inflammatory
+oxidative damage to blood vessels,
+which is why it's good for protecting
+from cardiovascular disease
+in contrast to testosterone,
+which is making everyone
+of those things worse.
+This springs up this
+minefield with a question,
+which is, so what about
+post-menopausal estrogen?
+And all sorts of lab studies
+with non-human primates
+suggested that you keep
+estrogen levels high
+after a monkey's equivalent of menopause.
+And you're going to keep
+brain health a lot better
+or decreasing the risk
+of dementia, stroke,
+every such thing.
+Estrogen is a great
+antioxidant, all of that.
+So in the 90s I think
+when Healy, I'm forgetting her name,
+but when there was the first
+female head of the NIH,
+Bernadine Healy set up this
+massive prospective human study,
+what was going to be the
+biggest one of all times,
+looking at the pluses and minuses
+of post-menopausal estrogen.
+And tens of thousands of
+women, and this was...
+And they had to cut the study short
+because what they were seeing was,
+estrogen was not only
+doing the normal bad stuff
+that you expect in terms of
+some decalcification stuff,
+but it was increasing the risk
+of cardiovascular disease,
+and it was increasing the risk of stroke,
+and it was increasing
+the risk of dementia.
+And this ground to a halt and everybody,
+they stopped the study and front page news
+and everybody panned at that point.
+And nobody could make sense of it
+who had been spending the
+last 20 years studying
+the exact same thing in primates
+and seeing all the protective effects.
+And the explanation turned
+out to be one of those things
+where like the law of
+unexpected consequences.
+Okay, menopause in women,
+it lasts different lengths of time,
+that may be a factor that's going to come.
+You know what, let's not start
+giving our study subjects
+more estrogen until they're
+totally past menopause.
+And when you've got that
+lag time in between,
+you shift all sorts of
+estrogen receptor patterns,
+and that's where all of
+the bad effects come from.
+- Wow!
+- All of the monkey studies
+had involved just maintaining
+ovulatory levels into the
+post-menopausal period.
+And you do that and you get great effects.
+Estrogen is one of the
+greatest predictors of
+protection from Alzheimer's
+disease, all of that,
+but it needs to be physiological.
+Just keep continuing what
+your body has been doing
+for a long time versus let
+the whole thing shutdown
+and suddenly like try to
+fire up the coal stoves
+at the bottom of the
+basement kind of thing,
+and get that going,
+there you get utterly different outcomes.
+And that caused a lot of
+human health consequences
+when people suddenly decided that estrogen
+is in fact neurologically
+endangering post-menopausally.
+- Wow, that's fascinating.
+And I never thought that these
+steroid hormone receptors
+could by not binding estrogen,
+being devoid of estrogen
+binding, I should say,
+could then set off opposite
+biochemical cascades.
+Fascinating.
+I guess it raises the question
+about testosterone replacement too,
+whether or not people should
+[laughs] talk to their
+doctor before too long.
+Men and women talk to your
+physicians before too long
+to avoid these, whatever is
+happening in these periods
+where there isn't sufficient
+testosterone and/or estrogen.
+It sounds like could
+cause longer-term problems
+even when therapies are introduced.
+- Two additional misery
+slash complications.
+So, okay, you're trying to understand,
+you look at women with a history
+with or without post-menopausal
+estrogen replacement
+where it's done great.
+And you're seeing 20 years later,
+estrogen is a predictor of a
+decreased risk of Alzheimer's.
+Then you got to start
+trying to do the unpacking
+prospective type studies.
+How much estrogen?
+At which times?
+Estrogen is a catchall term
+for a bunch of hormones,
+estrone, estradiol, estriol.
+How much of each one of them?
+Natural or synthetic?
+Go try to figure all of that out.
+And the second complication is,
+it's often hard to say anything
+about what estrogen does
+outside the context of
+what progesterone is doing.
+And often it's not the
+absolute levels of either,
+it's the ratio of the two.
+This is such a more
+complicated endocrine system
+than testosterone.
+And because you have to
+generate dramatic cyclicity
+that like no male hypothalamus
+ever has to dream off.
+It's a much, much more complicated system,
+thus, it's a lot more
+complicated to understand,
+let alone like figure out what
+the ideal benefits are of it.
+- Yeah.
+I don't know what to
+make of the literature on
+dropping rates of testosterone
+and endocrine disruptors.
+I was at Berkeley when Tyrone Hayes
+published his data on these frogs
+that were drinking water
+from various locations
+throughout the United States,
+not just in California,
+and seeing very severe
+endocrine disruption
+through blockade or,
+and of androgen receptors
+and all sorts of issues.
+And you hear this all the time now
+that sperm counts are dropping,
+that there are all these
+endocrine disruptors
+that there's birth control in the water,
+in the drinking water.
+It all starts to sound a little crazy,
+and yet I've also been fooled before by,
+I guess a good example would be,
+there's a lot of crazy
+stuff in the world online
+about all the terrible stuff
+in highly processed foods.
+And yet you've got very
+respectable people,
+endocrinologists at UCSF
+like Robert Lustig saying,
+yeah, a lot of these hidden sugars
+and these emulsifiers,
+they're causing real problems.
+So I've become more
+open-minded about the question.
+And so, are we suffering
+from drops in sperm counts
+and testosterone and
+estrogen and fertility
+as a consequence of endocrine disruptors
+in the environments and food,
+or because of social reasons?
+Is there anything that
+we can hang our hat on
+like real data that you're confident in?
+Or is it just a mess?
+- No, the phenomenon does
+appear to be quite real.
+Cross-sectional studies,
+human populations,
+or I still don't understand why this was
+one of the first things
+that Hayes spotted.
+Decreasing testicle size in crocodiles.
+[Andrew laughs]
+Go figure why that was
+one of the first contributions to this.
+And I think the phenomenon
+is absolutely real.
+And what you're then left with
+is two classic challenges,
+which is this is correlated with
+something broad environmental toxins.
+Which ones, how much, when, etc.?
+And the other one always
+being, well, okay,
+dropping is a dropping
+enough to make a difference.
+How big of an effect is this?
+And those are where the
+juries are still out.
+- Yeah, it's an area that I know
+there's a lot of interest in,
+and you've got groups of people
+who won't touch a receipt at a store
+because of the BPAs that
+are on the inks of the...
+And then [laughs] you've got people
+who don't care about those things.
+It is a fascinating area.
+I hope that more biology
+will be done there soon.
+I'd like to briefly return to stress.
+You described a study once about two rats,
+one running on a wheel voluntarily,
+one who is basically
+stuck in a running wheel,
+and it's forced to run
+anytime, rat number one runs.
+So in one case the rat is
+voluntarily exercising. [laughs]
+And in the other case,
+the rat is being forced
+to go to PE class, so to speak,
+but really, and seeing
+divergent effects on biology.
+And I'd like to just
+touch into this and use it
+as kind of a case study for
+stress mitigation in general.
+I'm rather obsessed in our
+colleague, David Spiegel,
+Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford
+is obsessed with this question of,
+how humans can start to
+mitigate their own stress?
+What do you think about stress mitigation
+and what should we do as
+individuals and as families
+and as a culture to try
+and encourage people
+to mitigate their stress, but in ways
+that are not going to turn
+us into rat number two,
+where we're being forced
+to mitigate our own stress
+and therefore it becomes
+more stressful. [laughs]
+- And what you see is, rat number one gets
+all the benefits of exercise.
+Rat number two gets all the
+downsides of severe stress
+with the same exact muscle expenditure
+and movements going on.
+Perfectly yoked, great example
+that it's the interpretation on your head.
+And I haven't kept up
+with that literature,
+but I'll bet you, rat number two
+is having a whole lot more
+activity in its amygdala
+than is rat number one.
+Okay, so stress mitigation.
+Anything I should say here
+I should preface with,
+I'm reasonably good at telling people
+what's going to happen if they
+don't manage their stress,
+but I'm terrible at actually
+like managing stress
+or advising how to manage that.
+I'm much better with the
+bad news aspect of it.
+But what you see is, by now
+just a classic literature,
+half a century old, sort of showing
+what are the building blocks of stress.
+Not, ooh, you step outside
+and you've been gored by an elephant,
+and can you grow from your experience?
+And what doesn't kill
+you makes you stronger.
+In that you could have a stress response,
+but you're in the realm of the gray zone
+of ambiguous social
+interactions, that sort of thing.
+Some people have massive stress responses,
+others not at all, in between, enjoy it.
+Like what are the building blocks of,
+what makes psychological stress stressful?
+And the first one is exactly
+what is brought up by that running study.
+Do you have a sense of control?
+A sense of control makes
+stressors less stressful.
+And the running wheel shows
+that or studies where you,
+you lab rat or you
+college freshman volunteer
+have been trained that
+by pressing a lever,
+you're less likely to get a shock.
+And today you're at the
+lever they're working away
+and unbeknownst to you the
+lever has been turned off,
+and it has no effect on shock frequency,
+but because you think
+you have some control,
+you have less of a stress response.
+If you were a rat and doing
+this day-in and day-out,
+you're less likely to get an ulcer.
+So a sense of control.
+And related to that is a
+sense of predictability.
+Rat get shocked, human
+gets shocked, whatever,
+and the scenario either is
+the shocks come now and then,
+or the shocks come now and then,
+and 10 seconds before a
+little warning light comes on.
+And when you get the warning light,
+the shocks are distressful.
+You got predictability
+because if you're not
+getting warning lights,
+any second you could be a half second away
+from the next shock.
+You get a warning light,
+and you know that if there isn't one,
+you've got at least 10
+seconds worth of relaxation.
+You know what's coming,
+you can prepare your coping responses,
+and best of all afterward you
+know when you're finally safe,
+when you can recover from it.
+And that's enormously protective.
+Others outlet for frustration,
+you take a rat who is getting shocked,
+and if it could run on a running wheel,
+that's a protective thing,
+that's doing it voluntarily.
+If you've got a rat and he
+can gnaw on a bar of wood,
+a stressor is less stressful.
+Unfortunately, if you have
+a rat or primate or human
+and they're stressed, the
+ability to aggressively dump on
+somebody smaller and weaker
+also reduces the stress response.
+And the fact that displacement
+aggression reduces stress
+accounts for a huge percent
+triggers like unhappiness.
+So all of those are variables,
+get social support as well.
+That's a good one.
+Interpreting circumstances is being
+good news rather than bad.
+Hurray, so you've got this very simple
+sort of like take home recipe of go out
+and get as much control
+and as much predictability
+and as many outlets and as much
+social support as possible,
+and you're going to do just fine.
+And you go out and do that,
+and that's a recipe for total disaster
+because it's much, much
+more subtle than that.
+In one great example, okay,
+so you're getting shocks,
+you want a warning beforehand,
+get a little warning light
+10 seconds before each shock,
+it's wonderfully protective.
+Get a warning light one
+second before the shock
+doesn't do anything.
+There's not enough time for you to get
+the psychological benefits
+of the anticipation.
+Now instead, gets the
+little warning coming on
+two minutes before each shock,
+and it's going to make things worse
+because you're not going to
+be sitting there like reveling
+and sort of your sense of predictability,
+and it's soon going to be, oh.
+You're going to be sitting
+there for two minutes saying,
+damn, here it comes.
+Predictive information only
+works in a narrow domain.
+Similarly, control.
+Do you want to have a sense of
+control on the face of stress?
+And the answer is, only if it
+is a mild to moderate stressor
+because what's happening then,
+your sense of control is
+completely independent
+of the reality of whether
+you have control or not,
+but in the face of mild
+to moderate stressors,
+a sense of control gets interpreted as,
+wow, look how much worse
+things could have been.
+Thank God, I have control,
+I'm on top of this to master my fate.
+In contrast, if it's a major stressor,
+all that arbitrary sense of control does
+is make you think,
+oh my God, look how much
+better it could have been.
+I could have prevented it.
+And we all know that intuitively
+like we do that in the face
+of people's worst stressors.
+Nobody could have stopped the car
+the way the kids suddenly jumped out.
+It wouldn't have mattered
+and if you had gotten them
+to the doctor a month ago,
+instead of now, it
+wouldn't have made any...
+You didn't actually have any control.
+And what you see is,
+you absolutely want to have
+a huge sense of control
+over mild to moderate stressors,
+and especially ones that
+result in a good outcome.
+Hooray, for me, and in the
+face of horrible stressors,
+what you want to do is
+like self-deception,
+and like truth and beauty
+don't necessarily go
+hand-in-hand at that point.
+And that's why stress management
+techniques impact control
+and predictability wind up
+being far worse than neutral
+if you're preaching that
+to somebody homeless
+or somebody with terminal cancer,
+or somebody who is a refugee.
+Tell a neurotic middle-class person
+that they have the psychological tools
+to turn hell into heaven.
+And there's some truth to that.
+Do the same thing to somebody
+who is going through a real hell,
+and that's just privileged heartlessness
+to do that because that doesn't work.
+More and more outlets, if
+your outlets are damaging,
+that's not a good way to mitigate stress.
+Social support, if you're
+confusing mere acquaintances
+for real social support,
+you're going to have the rug pulled out
+from under you at some point.
+If you're mistaking
+social support for being,
+going and bitching and moaning
+and demanding supportiveness
+from everyone around you
+rather than you doing
+some of that reciprocally,
+that's not going to work very well either.
+It's not simple.
+It's not for nothing that
+lots of us are really lousy.
+It, like being good friends
+and things like that,
+and why it takes a lot
+of work to do it right?
+Because you do it wrong
+and it may temporarily
+seem like a great thing,
+but when it turns out to be
+completely misplaced faith,
+you're going to be feeling
+worse than before you started.
+- Interesting.
+These days, there's a lot of interest in
+using physical practices
+to mitigate stress,
+trying to get out of the ruminating,
+and to some extent take
+control of neural circuits
+in the brain by using exercise
+and using breathing and hypnosis.
+And, of course, hypnosis has
+a mental component as well.
+What are your thoughts
+on stress mitigation
+from the standpoint of,
+okay, so we don't want
+to be rat number two,
+we want to select something for ourselves,
+so we have to take the
+initiative for ourselves.
+Being forced into exercising is not,
+it could actually have
+negative health effect perhaps.
+So we need to pick something that we like,
+we need to take control of it.
+In terms of supporting other people,
+you touched on that a bit.
+What is the best way to
+support other people?
+Is it to talk about the stressful thing?
+I mean, I'm not asking you
+to play psychologist here,
+but I find divergent data on this.
+We can spin ourselves up into a lather
+by ruminating on something.
+And language seems to me
+like it's a wonderful tool,
+but it's also a fairly deprived tool
+because it doesn't really get into
+the core of our physiology
+like something like breathing would.
+So what are your thoughts on more,
+for lack of a better way to
+put it, more head-centered,
+cognitive approaches to stress mitigation
+versus kind of going
+at the core physiology.
+Cold showers now are even
+a thing to some extent
+just to get people stress acclimated,
+voluntarily taking cold showers.
+- That makes some sense physiologically,
+preconditioning for when
+the real stressors come.
+In terms of what you bring up,
+oh, transcendental meditation,
+mindfulness, exercise,
+prayer, sort of reflecting on gratitude,
+all that sort of thing.
+Collectively they work on the average,
+they work in terms of,
+they can lower heart rate
+and cholesterol levels and have
+all sorts of good outcomes,
+but they compromise us.
+One is exactly the caveat
+that comes out of the
+running wheel study is,
+it doesn't matter how
+many of your friends swear
+by the stress management technique.
+If doing it makes you want to scream
+your head off after 10 seconds,
+that's not the one that's
+going to work for you.
+So read the fine print
+and the testimonials,
+but it's got to be something
+that works for you.
+Another one is the stress
+management type techniques
+that work, you can't save
+them for the weekend,
+you can't save them for
+when you're stuck on
+hold on the phone with
+Muzak for two minutes.
+It's got to be something where
+you stop what you're doing
+and do it virtually,
+daily or every other day,
+and spend 20, 30 minutes doing it.
+And what you see coming
+out of that is this
+like 80/20 rule from economics.
+80/20, 80% of the complaints
+in the store come from
+20% of the customers, things like that.
+What you see is, if your
+entire life consists of
+every single thing on your shoulders,
+that you can't say no to 24/7.
+If you've stopped that and finally said,
+my wellbeing is important enough
+that I'm finally get to
+say no to some of the stuff
+that I can't say no to.
+And I'm going to do it
+every day for 20 minutes,
+whatever stress management technique
+you then do in those 20
+minutes sort of who knows what,
+you're already 80% of the way there
+simply by having decided your
+wellbeing is important enough
+that you're going to stop every single day
+and have that as a priority.
+And that's exactly the same finding
+that you find people with
+chronic depression untreated
+that merely calling and
+getting an appointment
+to see a mental health professional,
+people start feeling better already
+because it's evidence that
+you've been activated,
+and you matter enough to do this,
+and you could conceive
+that this would actually
+have a good outcome rather
+than a hopeless one.
+Just doing something meditative
+or reflective every day or so,
+and it hardly even matters
+which one you're doing.
+And what comes out of that
+is thus another warning,
+which is do not trust anybody who says,
+it has been scientifically proven
+that their brand of stress management
+works better than the other ones.
+Just watch your wallet at that point.
+- Yeah, amen.
+I think one of the core goals of my lab
+and David Spiegel's lab,
+and I know you've worked with David
+and published papers with David as well
+is to really try and find out
+what are the various
+entry points to this thing
+that we call the autonomic nervous system
+and the stress system,
+and these systems that when gone unchecked
+really can take us down a dark path.
+And the idea that there
+are so many entry points
+is really the one that keeps,
+what the data keep telling
+us over and over again.
+So there's no magic
+breathing tool or exercise,
+it's any variety of those or one of those.
+And, again, we come back to this idea
+that it's the one that you select
+and the one that you make space for,
+and it's the one that you hopefully enjoy
+that's going to work best
+in terms of physiology.
+- And [mumbles] benign for those people
+who were stuck around you.
+- Right, right, absolutely.
+And that brings me to this question of,
+I find it amazing that
+how we perceive an event,
+and whether or not we chose
+to be in that event or not
+can have such incredible different effects
+on circuitry of the brain
+and circuitry of the body
+and biology of cells.
+And in some ways it boggles my mind,
+like how can a decision made presumably
+with the prefrontal cortex,
+although other parts of the brain as well,
+how can that change
+essentially the polarity
+of a response in the body.
+And, I mean, you've talked before
+about Type A personalities in there.
+We don't have to go into
+all the detail there
+for sake of time, but it is interesting
+that the effects of endothelial cells.
+I mean, literally of the size of, [laughs]
+of the portals for blood
+are in opposite direction,
+depending on whether or not somebody
+wants to be in a situation
+as a highly motivated person.
+Maybe you could just give
+us the top contour of that
+because I think it really illustrates
+this principle so beautifully.
+And then maybe if you would,
+you could just speculate on
+how the brain might
+have this switch to turn
+one experience from terrible to beneficial
+or from beneficial to terrible,
+it's really fascinating.
+- Well, all you need to do is like tonight
+before you're going to sleep
+and you're lying in bed
+and you're nice and drowsy
+and your heart's beating nice and slow,
+you start thinking about the fact that
+that heart isn't going to beat forever.
+[Andrew laughs]
+And imagine your toes
+getting cold afterward
+and imagine the flow of
+blood coming to a halt
+and all of you clotting.
+You're going to be doing
+something with your physiology
+at that point that 99% of
+mammals out there only do
+if they're running frantically.
+And you're going to be turning on your
+sympathetic stress response with thought,
+with emotions, with memory.
+And the measure of that is
+just how much the cortex
+and the limbic system
+sends projections down
+to all the autonomic
+regulators in the brain.
+You can think autonomic
+regulatory neurons into action
+in ways that only other animals can do
+with like extremes of
+environmental circumstances.
+And given that and the autonomic rule,
+I mean, the other big
+challenge in understanding it
+is gigantic individual differences.
+And that's,
+when you talk about the
+optimal amount of stress,
+the counts of stimulation,
+and in general that stress
+that's not too severe
+and doesn't go on for too long
+and there is overall in
+a benevolence setting.
+And under those conditions,
+we'd love being stressed
+by something unexpected and
+out of control predictability
+like a really interesting plot turn
+in the movie you're watching.
+That's great, but you get
+the individual differences
+that somehow has to accommodate the fact
+that for some people, the
+perfect stimulatory amount
+of stress is like getting up early
+for an Audubon birdwatching
+walk next Sunday morning.
+And for somebody else,
+it's signing up to be
+like a mercenary in Yemen.
+[Andrew laughs]
+And tremendous individual differences
+that swamp any simple prescriptions.
+- Yeah, the prefrontal cortex,
+this thinking machinery
+that we all harbor, it's
+such a double-edged sword.
+And what's remarkable to me is,
+how the areas of the brain
+like the hypothalamus
+and the amygdala, they're
+sort of like switches.
+I mean, there is context
+and there is gain control.
+You talked about the gain
+control by testosterone, etc.,
+but they're really like switches.
+I mean, if you stimulate
+ventromedial hypothalamus,
+you get the right neurons,
+an animal will try and kill even an object
+that's sitting next to it.
+You tickle some other neurons,
+it'll try and mate with that same object.
+I mean, it's really wild.
+I think there are probably
+rules to prefrontal cortex also,
+but it sounds like the context plural
+from which prefrontal cortex can draw from
+is probably infinite, so
+that we could probably learn
+to perceive threat in anything.
+Whether or not it's another group
+or whether or not it's science
+or whether or not it's
+somebody's version of
+the shape of the earth versus another.
+I mean, it's like, you can
+plug in anything to this system
+and give it enough data,
+and I think it sounds like you
+could drive a fear response
+or a love response.
+Is that overstepping?
+- Or [laughs] a mixed
+horribly ambivalent one
+that is changing by the millisecond,
+and then like could be
+mutually contradictory.
+No, that's absolutely the case
+in the prefrontal cortex,
+I more than once have regretted
+having like wasted 30 years
+of my life studying the hippocampus
+then I shoot him and studied
+the prefrontal cortex
+because it's so much more
+interesting what it does,
+and it's all this contextual stuff.
+It's all the ways in which
+it's not okay to lie in this setting,
+but it's a great thing in another.
+It's not okay to kill
+unless you do it to them,
+and then you get a medal.
+It's not, all of this social context
+and moral relativity and
+situational ethic stuff,
+that's the prefrontal cortex
+that's got to master that.
+And that winds up meaning
+that's the place in your brain
+more than anywhere where you
+say your perception of things
+can powerfully influence the reality
+of what's coming into you.
+- Yeah.
+- I mean,
+a great example, just
+harking back to testosterone.
+Okay, so exercise boosts
+up testosterone levels.
+Does exercise and success do it more
+than exercise and failure?
+A literature back in the 80s or so
+looking at outcomes of marathons.
+Did testosterone rise more in the people
+who win than the losers?
+Wrestling matches.
+Things of that sort
+with a simple prediction
+and the answer wound up being,
+you didn't see a simple answer.
+Okay, you win the marathon,
+that's not necessarily a predictor
+of increased testosterone.
+What's that about?
+And then you find like the
+winner testosterone decreases,
+and you find out the guy who came in 73rd
+is having a massive testosterone increase.
+Whoa, what's that about?
+What's that about is
+far more human subtlety.
+The guy who won the race has
+a decline in testosterone
+because he came in three minutes later
+than he really, really was expecting.
+And everybody now is
+going to be writing it up
+about how he's over the hill.
+And the guy who came in 73rd
+is having a boost of testosterone
+because he was assuming he'd
+be dead from a heart attack
+by the third mile,
+[Andrew laughs]
+and instead he managed to finish.
+It's this interpretive
+stuff going on in there,
+and that's what prefrontal
+cortex is about.
+- Amazing, it raises this
+question of cognitive flexibility,
+Can we tell ourselves that
+something is good for us
+even if we're not enjoying it?
+And can we wriggle around these corners of
+choosing the exercise or doing the...
+Personally I'm not a big fan
+of long bouts of meditation,
+but I've benefited
+tremendously from things like
+dedicated breathing and
+shorter rounds of meditation.
+Can I tell myself that it's good for me
+and wriggle around the corner
+and get my physiology
+working the way I want?
+Do we have cognitive flexibility?
+Can I be that third place
+runner and tell myself,
+well, at least I came in,
+I wanted to win so badly.
+That was my primary goal,
+but another goal was to
+beat my previous time,
+and I did do that.
+And so, [laughs] I mean, it's...
+To what extent can we
+toggle this relationship
+between the prefrontal cortex
+and these other more primitive systems?
+- Well, an enormous amount.
+For example, being low in a hierarchy
+is generally bad for health in
+like every mammal out there,
+including us, but we do something special,
+which is we can be part
+of multiple hierarchies
+at the same time.
+And while you maybe low
+ranking in one of them,
+you could be extremely
+high ranking in another,
+you're like have the crappiest
+job in your corporation,
+but you are the captain
+of the softball team
+this year for the company.
+And you better bet that's somebody
+who is going to find all sorts of ways
+to decide that nine to
+five Monday to Fridays,
+just stupid paying the bills.
+And what really matters is
+the prestige on the weekend.
+You're poorer, but you're the
+deacon of your church here.
+And so we can play all sorts of
+psychological games with that.
+One of the most like consistent,
+reliable ones that we do
+and need to use the frontal
+cortex like crazy is,
+somebody does something rotten
+and you need to attribute it.
+And the answer is, they
+did something wrong,
+hmm, because they're rotten.
+Always have been
+or always will be this
+constitutional explanation.
+You do something rotten to somebody,
+and how do you explain it afterward?
+A situational one.
+I was tired, I was stressed
+in this sort of setting,
+I misunderstood this.
+We're best at excusing
+ourselves from bad things
+because we have access to our inner lives
+and we've got prefrontal cortexes
+that are great at coming up
+with a situational explanation
+rather than, hey, maybe you're just
+like a selfish rotten
+human, you need to change.
+And that's all prefrontal cortex,
+and we do that every time,
+we don't let somebody merge
+in the lane in front of us,
+even though you curse somebody
+who does the same thing to you and...
+Endlessly.
+- I love it.
+Your statement about the
+fact that we can select
+multiple hierarchies to participate in.
+To me it seems like a particularly
+important one nowadays
+with social media being so prevalent.
+I know you're not particularly
+active on social media
+although you might be pleasantly,
+or I don't know unpleasantly
+surprised to find out
+that there's a lot of
+positive discussion about you
+and your work, so you don't
+even need to be on there.
+We'll just continue to
+discuss [laughs] your work.
+But what's interesting about
+social media I've found
+is that the context is very, very broad.
+I mean, one could argue that
+who one selects to follow
+and which news articles
+you're reading, etc.
+can create a kind of a
+funneling of information
+that itself can be dangerous.
+More verification of crazy ideas
+or even just less exposure to new ideas.
+But there's also this idea
+that social media is an
+incredibly broad context.
+So as you scroll through
+a feed, it's no longer
+like being in your eighth grade classroom
+or your office or your faculty meeting.
+You are being exposed to thousands,
+if not millions of contexts,
+this meal, that soccer game,
+this person's body,
+this person's intellect.
+YouTube is another example.
+It's a vast, vast landscape.
+So the context is completely mishmash
+whereas I'm assuming we evolved.
+I think we did evolve under contexts
+that were much more constrained.
+We interacted with a limited
+number of individuals
+and a limited number of different domains,
+seasons tended to be constrain us all.
+Of course, then we got
+phones and televisions,
+and this started to expand,
+but now more than ever, our
+brain, our prefrontal cortex
+and our sense of where we exist
+in these multiple hierarchies
+has essentially wicked out into infinity.
+How do you think this might be interacting
+with some of these more primitive systems
+and other aspects of our biology?
+- Well, I think what you get is,
+in some ways the punchline of,
+what's most human about humans,
+which is over and over we
+use the exact same blueprint,
+the same hormones, the same
+kinases, the same receptors,
+the same, everything were built
+out of the exact same stuff
+as all these other species out there,
+and then we go and use it
+in a completely novel way.
+And usually in terms of being able to
+abstract stuff over space
+and time in dramatic ways.
+So, okay, you're a low ranking baboon
+and you can feel badly because
+you just like killed a rabbit
+and you're about to eat
+and some higher ranking guy boots you off
+and takes it away from you,
+and you feel crummy and it's
+stressful and you're unhappy.
+We are doing the exact same
+things with like our brain
+and bodies when we're losing
+a sense of self-esteem,
+but we can do it by watching a
+movie character on the screen
+and feeling inadequate
+compared to like how wonderful
+or attractive they are.
+We can do it by somebody driving past us
+in an expensive car, and we
+don't even see their face,
+and you can feel belittled by
+your own socioeconomic status.
+You can watch like the
+Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
+or read about what Bezos is up to.
+And for some reason, decide
+your life is less fulfilling
+because you didn't fly
+into space for 11 minutes.
+And so you can feel miserable
+about yourself in ways
+that no other organism can,
+simply because we can have
+our meaningful social networks
+include like the party you're
+reading about on Facebook
+that you weren't invited to
+because it's taking place in Singapore,
+and you don't know any of those people,
+but nonetheless, somehow
+that could be a means for you
+to feel less content with
+who you've turned out to be.
+Do you take steps in your own life
+to actively restrict the contexts
+in which you think and
+live and contemplate
+in order to enhance your creative life,
+your intellectual life?
+Are those steps that you actively take?
+- Well, I very actively
+don't know how to make use
+of anything [laughs] with social media.
+So I guess that counts as my having thus
+actively chosen not to learn how.
+So that's the case certainly
+for the last year and a half,
+like lots of people, I've
+gone through stretches
+where I've managed to sort
+of enforce a moratorium
+on looking at the news, and
+that was wonderfully freeing.
+I think in the larger sense though,
+in addition to me being a neurobiologist,
+I'd sort of spent decades
+spending part of each year
+studying wild baboons out in a
+national park in East Africa.
+And I'd spend three months
+a year without electricity,
+without phone calls,
+with going 12 hours a day
+without saying a word to somebody.
+And when I finally would,
+it would be somebody
+nomadic pastoralist guy
+in a different language.
+Yeah, I did 90% of my
+like insightful thinking
+about anything in the laboratory
+during those three months each year,
+and not one in the lab, and
+not when inundated with stuff.
+- Well, I think there is a shifting trend
+towards trying to create a
+narrowing of context that...
+And I like what I see, I have
+a niece, she's 14-years-old
+and she and her friends are very good
+at putting their phones away.
+They say, we're not
+going to have our phones
+for this interaction, especially after...
+And I realized we're
+still somewhat in this.
+It's unclear where it's headed,
+but 2020 was so restrictive
+and she was so separated from her friends.
+Now it's, let's really
+focus on being together
+and not bring in all these
+other elements from our phones.
+And that brings me great hope for
+that generation, [laughs]
+maybe they will...
+Or who knows, maybe they'll
+run off and study baboons,
+we need more field researchers.
+So along the lines of choice,
+I'd like to shift gears slightly
+and talk about freewill,
+about our ability to make choices at all.
+- Well, my personal way out in left field
+inflammatory stance is,
+I don't think we have a shred of freewill
+despite 95% of philosophers.
+And I think probably the
+majority of neuroscientists
+are saying that we have freewill
+in at least some circumstances.
+I don't think there's any at all.
+And the reason for this is,
+you do something,
+you behave, you make a choice, whatever.
+And to understand why you did that,
+where did that intention come from?
+Part of it was due to like
+the sensory environment
+you were in the previous minute.
+Some of it is from the hormone levels
+in your bloodstream that morning.
+Some of it is from whether
+you had a wonderful
+or stressful last three months
+and what sort of neuroplasticity happened.
+Part of it is what hormone levels
+you were exposed to as a fetus.
+Part of it is what culture
+your ancestors came up with,
+and thus how you were
+parented when you were a kid.
+All of those are in there,
+and you can understand where
+behavior is coming from
+without incorporating all of those.
+And at that point,
+not only are there all of
+these relevant factors,
+but they're ultimately all one factor.
+If you're talking about what evolution
+has to do with your behavior,
+by definition you're also
+talking about genetics.
+If you're talking about what your genes
+have to do with behavior, by
+definition you're talking about
+how your brain was constructed
+or what proteins are coded for.
+If you're talking about
+like your mood disorder now,
+you're talking about the sense of efficacy
+you were getting as a five-year-old.
+They're all intertwined.
+And when you look at all those influences,
+basically like the challenge is,
+show me a neuron that
+just caused that behavior,
+or show me a network of neurons
+that just caused that behavior.
+And show me that nothing
+about what they just did
+was influenced by anything
+from the sensory environment
+one second ago to the
+evolution of your species.
+And there's no space in there
+to fit in a freewill concept
+that winds up being in your
+brain, but not of your brain.
+There's simply no wiggle
+room for it there.
+- So I can appreciate that our behaviors
+and our choices are the
+consequences of a long line
+of dominoes that fell
+prior to that behavior.
+But is it possible that I can intervene in
+the domino effect, so to speak.
+In other words, can my
+recognition of the fact
+that genes have heritability,
+there is an epigenome that,
+there is a hormonal context,
+there is a historical context.
+Can the knowledge of that give me some
+small shard of freewill?
+Meaning, does it allow me to say, ah,
+okay, I accept that my choices
+are somewhat predetermined,
+and yet knowing that gives me
+some additional layer of control?
+Is there any philosophical
+or biological universe
+in which that works?
+- Nah.
+All of that can produce the
+wonderfully positive belief
+that change can happen.
+Even a traumatic change, even
+in the worst of circumstances,
+most unlikely people,
+and change can happen,
+things can change.
+Don't be fatalistic, don't decide
+because we're a mechanistic,
+biological machines
+that nothing can ever...
+Change can happen,
+but where people go off the rails
+is translating that into,
+we can change ourselves.
+We don't, we can't because
+there's no freewill.
+However, we can be
+changed by circumstance.
+And the point of it is,
+like you look at an Aplysia, a sea slug
+that has learned to retract its gill
+in response to a shock on its tail,
+you can do like conditioning,
+Pavlovian conditioning on it,
+and it has learned, its
+behavior has been changed
+by its environment.
+And you hear news about something like
+horrifically depressing going on,
+and refugees in wherever.
+And as a result, you feel
+a little bit more helpless
+and a less of a sense of
+efficacy in the world,
+and both of your behaviors
+have been changed.
+Okay, okay, yeah, I guess that,
+but the remarkable thing is,
+it's the exact same neurobiology.
+The signal transduction
+pathways that were happening
+in that sea snail incorporate
+the exact same kinases
+and proteases and phosphatases
+that we do when you're having
+mammalian fear conditioning,
+or when you're alert, it's conserved.
+It's the exact same thing,
+it's simply playing out
+in obviously a much, much fancier domain.
+And because you have learned
+that change is possible
+despite understanding mechanistically
+that we can't change
+ourselves volitionally,
+but because you understand
+change is possible,
+you have just changed
+the ability of your brain
+to respond to optimistic stimuli.
+And you have changed the
+ability of your brain
+to now send you in the
+direction of being exposed to
+more information that will seem cheerful
+rather than depressing.
+Oh my God, that's amazing,
+what Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther king
+and all these folks did.
+Wow, under the most
+adverse of circumstances,
+they were able to do.
+Maybe I can also, maybe I can go read more
+about people like them to
+get even more data points
+of change the neurochemistry,
+so that your responses are different now.
+And you're tilted a little
+bit more in that direction
+of feeling like you can make a difference
+instead of it's all damn hopeless.
+So enormous change can happen,
+but the last thing that
+could come out of a view of,
+we are nothing more or less
+than the sum of our biology
+and its interactions with environment,
+is to throw up your hands and say,
+and thus it's no use
+trying to change anything.
+- So we can acknowledge that
+change is extremely hard
+to impossible, that
+circumstances can change,
+and yet that striving to
+be better human beings
+is still a worthwhile endeavor.
+Do I have that correct?
+- Absolutely.
+Because simply the knowledge,
+either from experience
+or making it to the end of
+the right neurobiology class
+has taught you that change can happen
+within a framework of a
+mechanistic neurobiology.
+You were now more open
+to being made optimistic
+by the good news in the world around you.
+You are more likely to be
+inspired by this or that,
+you were more resistant to
+getting discouraged by bad news,
+simply because you now
+understand it's possible.
+- Mm-hmm, yeah, somebody who spent
+much of his career working
+on the hippocampus,
+I have to assume that you are
+a believer in neuroplasticity,
+that neural circuits can change
+in response to experience,
+and that some of the same
+so-called top-down mechanisms
+of prefrontal cortex that
+we were talking about before
+can play a role there,
+that the decision to try and change
+and the pursuit of knowledge
+and the pursuit of experience
+can shape our circuitry,
+and therefore make us different
+machines, so to speak.
+- Yeah.
+And not only can say
+prenatal hormone exposure
+changed the way your brain
+is being constructed,
+but learning that
+prenatal hormone exposure
+can change the construction of your brain
+will change your brain right now,
+and how you think about where
+your intentions came from.
+Wow, maybe that had
+something to do with it.
+The knowledge of the
+knowledge is an effector
+in and of itself.
+- That's such an important and
+powerful statement to hear.
+I think that many people
+think that if a tool,
+if it doesn't involve
+a pill or a protocol,
+that it's useless.
+And certainly there
+are pills and protocols
+that are very useful
+in a variety of context
+for a variety of things, but
+the idea that knowledge itself,
+whereas you put it, knowledge
+of knowledge is itself a tool,
+I think is a very important
+concept for people
+to embed in their minds.
+And, listen, I'm so
+grateful for this discussion
+and for you raising these topics.
+I think that people,
+many people know your work
+on testosterone, on stress,
+and we've covered some of that today,
+the work on freewill and this
+idea that we are hopeless
+or that we are in total control.
+I think I'm realizing in listening to you
+that it's neither is true,
+and that the solution resides
+in understanding more about freewill
+and lack of it, [laughs]
+and also neuroplasticity.
+You're working on a book about freewill,
+are you willing to tell us
+a little bit about that book
+and where you are in that process
+and what we can look forward to?
+- Yeah, it's going really slow.
+Title is, "Determined: A Science
+of Life Without Freewill."
+And essentially the
+first half of the book is
+trying to convince a reader,
+okay, if not that there's
+no freewill whatsoever,
+but at least there's a lot
+less than is normally assumed.
+And I'm going through all the
+standard arguments for freewill,
+and why that doesn't make sense
+with 21st century science?
+And that has led to reading
+a lot of very frustrating
+philosophers who basically
+are willing to admit
+that stuff is made out of
+like atoms and molecules.
+And like there's a physical
+reality sort of world,
+they're not just relying on magic,
+but that they believe in
+freewill for magical reasons,
+and where it doesn't make sense.
+Okay, so the first half of the book is to
+hopefully convince people that
+there's much less freewill
+than we used to think.
+And then the second half
+is this gigantic juncture
+built around the fact
+that I haven't thought
+there's any freewill since
+I was like an adolescent.
+And despite thinking that way,
+I still have absolutely no idea
+how you're supposed to
+function with that belief.
+How are you supposed to
+go about everyday life
+if anything you feel
+entitled to isn't true?
+If any angers and hatreds
+you feel aren't justified,
+if there's no such thing as appropriate,
+blame or punishment or praise or reward,
+and none of it makes any sense,
+and somebody like even
+compliments you on your haircut,
+and you've been conditioned
+to say, oh, thanks,
+as if you had something to do.
+How are we supposed to function with that?
+And so the second half
+is wrestling with that,
+and what the punchline there is,
+is it's going to be incredibly hard.
+And if you think it's going to be hard
+to subtract a notion of freewill
+out of making sense of
+like serial murderers,
+it's going to be a thousand times harder
+making sense of when somebody
+says "good job" to you.
+[Andrew laughs]
+And because it's the exact
+same on reality of sort
+of our interpretations.
+It's going to be incredibly hard,
+but nonetheless when
+you look at the history
+of how we have subtracted
+the notion of agency
+out of all sorts of realms of
+blame, starting with thinking
+that witches caused
+hailstorms 500 years ago
+to the notion that
+psychodynamically screwed up mothers
+cause schizophrenia, we've done it.
+We've done it endless number of times,
+we've been able to subtract
+out a sense of volition
+in understanding how the
+world works around us.
+And we don't have murderers
+running amuck on the street,
+and society hasn't
+collapsed into a puddle,
+and in fact, it's a more humane society.
+So the good news is it's possible
+because we've done it
+repeatedly in the past,
+but it's going to be hard as hell.
+And it's hard as hell to try
+to write about that coherently,
+[laughs] I'm discovering,
+so it's going slowly.
+- Well, I speak for many,
+many people when I say
+that we're really excited
+for the book when it's done
+and we will patiently wait,
+but with great excitement
+for the book, "Determined".
+You said it's the title, correct?
+- Yeah, "Determined: The Science
+of Life Without Freewill".
+It seems like you can't
+publish your book these days
+without a sub-title, so that's it?
+- Fantastic.
+Well, very excited to read the book.
+I'm very grateful to you
+for this conversation today,
+I learned a ton.
+Every time you speak I learn,
+and for me it's really been a pleasure
+and a delight to interact with you today
+and over the previous years,
+I should say, as colleagues.
+And thank you again, Robert,
+for everything that you do
+and all the hard, hard work and thinking
+that you put into your work
+because it's clear that
+you put a lot of hard work
+and thinking, and we all
+benefit as a consequence.
+- Thanks, and thanks for
+having me, this was a blast.
+- Thank you for joining
+me for my conversation
+with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
+If you're enjoying this
+podcast and learning from it,
+please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
+In addition, you can leave
+us comments and suggestions
+for future episodes and guests
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+Please also subscribe
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+and on Apple you have the
+opportunity to leave us
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+In addition, please check out the sponsors
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+That's a terrific way to support us.
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+and how to better access
+sleep and combat stress,
+you can do that by supporting the research
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+You can go to HubermanLab.stanford.edu,
+and there you'll see a tab entitled,
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+And last but not least,
+thank you for your interest in science.
+[upbeat music]

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+ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome
+to Huberman Lab Essentials
+where we revisit past
+episodes for the most
+potent and actionable
+science-based tools
+for mental health, physical
+health, and performance.
+I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a professor
+of neurobiology
+and ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+For today's podcast, we're
+going to talk about the parts
+list of the nervous system.
+Now, that might sound
+boring, but these
+are the bits and pieces that
+together make up everything
+about your experience of life.
+From what you think about to
+what you feel, what you imagine,
+and what you
+accomplish from the day
+you're born until
+the day you die.
+By the end of this
+podcast, I promise
+you're going to understand a
+lot more about how you work
+and how to apply that knowledge.
+So let's talk about
+the nervous system.
+The reason I say your nervous
+system and not your brain
+is because your
+brain is actually
+just one piece of this
+larger, more important thing,
+frankly, that we call
+the nervous system.
+The nervous system includes
+your brain and your spinal cord,
+but also all the connections
+between your brain
+and your spinal cord and
+the organs of your body.
+It also includes,
+very importantly,
+all the connections
+between your organs
+back to your spinal
+cord and brain.
+So the way to think about how
+you function at every level,
+from the moment you're
+born until the day you die,
+everything you think, and
+remember, and feel, and imagine
+is that your nervous system
+is this continuous loop
+of communication between the
+brain, spinal cord, and body,
+and body, spinal
+cord, and brain.
+In fact, we really can't
+even separate them.
+It's one continuous loop.
+The way to think about how
+the nervous system works
+is that our experiences,
+our memories, everything
+is sort of like
+the keys on a piano
+being played in a
+particular order.
+If I play the keys on a
+piano in a particular order
+and with a particular
+intensity, that's a given song.
+We could make that analogous
+to a given experience.
+Our brain is really a
+map of our experience.
+We come into the
+world, and our brain
+has a kind of bias
+towards learning
+particular kinds of things.
+It's ready to receive
+information and learn
+that information, but the brain
+is really a map of experience.
+So let's talk about what
+experience really is.
+What does it mean for
+your brain to work?
+Well, I think it's fair to say
+that the nervous system really
+does five things, maybe six.
+The first one is sensation.
+Sensation is a non-negotiable
+element of your nervous system.
+You have neurons
+in your eye that
+perceive certain colors of
+light and certain directions
+of movement.
+You have neurons
+in your skin that
+perceive particular
+kinds of touch,
+like light touch, or firm
+touch, or painful touch.
+You have neurons in your ears
+that perceive certain sounds.
+Your entire
+experience of life is
+sort of filtered by these, what
+we call, sensory receptors,
+if you want to know
+what the name is.
+Perception is our ability
+to take what we're sensing
+and focus on it and make
+sense of it, to explore it,
+to remember it.
+So really, perceptions
+are just whichever
+sensations we happen
+to be paying attention
+to at any moment.
+Perception is under the
+control of your attention.
+And the way to think
+about attention
+is it's like a spotlight.
+Except it's not one
+spotlight, you actually
+have two attentional spotlights.
+Anyone that tells you you
+can't multitask, tell them
+they're wrong, and if
+they disagree with you,
+tell them to contact me.
+Because in old world
+primates, of which humans are,
+we are able to do what's
+called covert attention.
+We can place a
+spotlight of attention
+on something, for
+instance, something
+we're reading or looking at, or
+someone that we're listening to,
+and we can place a second
+spotlight of attention
+on something we're
+eating and how
+it tastes, or our child running
+around in the room, or my dog.
+You can split your attention
+into two locations,
+but of course,
+you can also bring
+your attention, that
+is your perception,
+to one particular location.
+You can dilate your
+attention, kind
+of making a spotlight
+more diffuse,
+or you can make it
+more concentrated.
+This is very important
+to understand
+if you're going to think
+about tools to improve
+your nervous system.
+Attention is something that is
+absolutely under your control.
+The nervous system can be
+reflexive in its action
+or it can be deliberate.
+Deliberate thoughts
+are top-down.
+They require some
+effort and some focus,
+but that's the point.
+You can decide to focus your
+behavior in any way you want,
+but it will always
+feel like it requires
+some effort and some strain.
+Whereas when you're
+in reflexive mode,
+just walking and talking and
+eating and doing your thing,
+it's going to feel very easy.
+And that's because your nervous
+system basically wired up
+to be able to do
+most things easily
+without much metabolic demand,
+without consuming much energy.
+But the moment you try and
+do something very specific,
+you're going to feel a
+sort of mental friction.
+It's going to be challenging.
+So we've got sensations,
+perceptions, and then
+we've got things that we
+call feelings/emotions.
+And these get a little
+complicated because almost all
+of us, I would
+hope all of us, are
+familiar with things like
+happiness and sadness,
+or boredom or frustration.
+Certainly emotions and
+feelings are the product
+of the nervous system.
+They involve the
+activity of neurons.
+But as I mentioned earlier,
+neurons are electrically active,
+but they also release chemicals.
+And there's a certain
+category of chemicals
+that has a very
+profound influence
+on our emotional states.
+They're called neuromodulators.
+And those neuromodulators have
+names that probably you've
+heard of before,
+things like dopamine,
+and serotonin, and
+acetylcholine, epinephrine.
+Neuromodulators are really
+interesting because they
+bias which neurons are
+likely to be active
+and which ones are
+likely to be inactive.
+A simple way to think
+about neuromodulators
+is they are sort
+of like playlists
+that you would have
+on any kind of device,
+where you're going to play
+particular categories of music.
+So, for instance,
+dopamine, which
+is often discussed as the
+molecule of reward or joy,
+is involved in
+reward and it does
+tend to create a
+sort of upbeat mood
+when released in appropriate
+amounts in the brain.
+But the reason it does that is
+because it makes certain neurons
+and neural circuits,
+as we call them,
+more active and
+others less active.
+OK, so, serotonin,
+for instance, is
+a molecule that when
+released tends to make
+us feel really good
+with what we have,
+our sort of internal landscape
+and the resources that we have.
+Whereas dopamine, more than
+being a molecule of reward,
+is really more a molecule
+of motivation toward things
+that are outside us and
+that we want to pursue.
+And we can look at healthy
+conditions or situations,
+like being in pursuit of
+a goal where every time
+we accomplish something
+en route to that goal,
+a little bit of
+dopamine is released
+and we feel more
+motivation, that happens.
+We can also look at the extreme
+example of something like mania,
+where somebody is so
+relentlessly in pursuit
+of external things, like
+money and relationships,
+that they're sort of in this
+delusional state of thinking
+that they have the resources
+that they need in order
+to pursue all these things,
+when in fact they don't.
+I want to emphasize
+also that emotions
+are something that we generally
+feel are not under our control.
+We feel like they kind
+of geyser up within us
+and they just kind
+of happen to us.
+And that's because they
+are somewhat reflexive.
+We don't really set out with a
+deliberate thought to be happy
+or a deliberate
+thought to be sad.
+We tend to experience them
+in a passive, reflexive way.
+And that brings us to the next
+thing, which are thoughts.
+Thoughts are really interesting
+because in many ways
+they're like perceptions,
+except that they draw
+on not just what's happening
+in the present, but also things
+we remember from
+the past and things
+that we anticipate
+about the future.
+The other thing about thoughts
+that's really interesting
+is that thoughts can
+be both reflexive,
+they can just be occurring
+all the time, sort of
+like pop-up windows on a
+poorly filtered web browser,
+or they can be deliberate.
+We can decide to have a thought.
+And a lot of people don't
+understand, or at least
+appreciate, that the thought
+patterns and the neural circuits
+that underlie thoughts
+can actually be controlled
+in this deliberate way.
+And then finally,
+there are actions.
+Actions, or
+behaviors, are perhaps
+the most important aspect
+to our nervous system
+because first of
+all, our behaviors
+are actually the
+only thing that are
+going to create any fossil
+record of our existence.
+After we die, the nervous system
+deteriorates, our skeleton
+will remain.
+But it's in the
+moment of experiencing
+something very joyful
+or something very sad,
+it can feel so all
+encompassing that we actually
+think that it has some
+meaning beyond that moment.
+But actually for
+humans, and I think
+for all species, the
+sensations, the perceptions,
+and the thoughts
+and the feelings
+that we have in our
+lifespan, none of that
+is actually carried
+forward except the ones
+that we take and we convert
+into actions, such as writing,
+actions, such as words, actions,
+such as engineering new things.
+And so the fossil record of our
+species and of each one of us
+is really through action.
+And that, in part, is why so
+much of our nervous system
+is devoted to converting
+sensation, perception, feelings,
+and thoughts into actions.
+The other way to
+think about it is
+that one of the reasons that
+our central nervous system,
+our brain and spinal cord,
+include this stuff in our skull,
+but also connects so
+heavily to the body
+is because most everything
+that we experience,
+including our
+thoughts and feelings,
+was really designed to either
+impact our behavior or not.
+And the fact that thoughts
+allow us to reach into the past
+and anticipate the future,
+and not just experience
+what's happening in
+the moment, gave rise
+to an incredible capacity for
+us to engage in behaviors that
+are not just for the moment.
+They're based on things
+that we know from the past
+and that we would like
+to see in the future.
+And this aspect of our nervous
+system of creating movement
+occurs through some
+very simple pathways.
+The reflexive pathway
+basically includes
+areas of the brainstem we call
+central pattern generators.
+When you walk, provided you
+already know how to walk,
+you are basically
+walking because you
+have these central pattern
+generators, groups of neurons
+that generate right foot,
+left foot, right foot,
+left foot kind of movement.
+However, when you decide to move
+in a particular deliberate way
+that requires a
+little more attention,
+you start to engage
+areas of your brain
+for top-down processing,
+where your forebrain works
+from the top down to control
+those central pattern generators
+so that maybe it's
+right foot, right foot,
+left foot, right
+foot, right foot,
+left foot, if
+maybe you're hiking
+along some rocks or something
+and you have to engage
+in that kind of movement.
+So movement is just
+thoughts, can be
+either reflexive or deliberate.
+And when we talk
+about deliberate,
+I want to be very specific
+about how your brain works
+in a deliberate way,
+because it gives rise
+to a very important feature
+of the nervous system
+that we're going to talk about
+next, which is your ability
+to change your nervous system.
+And what I'd like to
+center on for a second is
+this notion of what does it
+mean for the nervous system
+to do something deliberately?
+Well, when you do something
+deliberately, you pay attention,
+you are bringing your perception
+to an analysis of three things.
+Duration, how long something is
+going to take or should be done.
+Path, what you should be doing.
+And outcome, if you do something
+for a given length of time,
+what's going to happen.
+Now, when you're walking down
+the street, or you're eating,
+or you're just
+talking reflexively,
+you're not doing
+this, what I call,
+DPO, duration,
+path, outcome, type
+of deliberate function in
+your brain and nervous system.
+Let's give an example where
+perhaps somebody says something
+that's triggering to
+you, you don't like it,
+and you know you
+shouldn't respond.
+You feel like, "oh, I shouldn't
+respond, I shouldn't respond,
+I shouldn't respond."
+You are actively
+suppressing your behavior
+through top-down processing.
+Your forebrain is
+actually preventing you
+from saying the thing that
+you know you shouldn't say,
+or that maybe you should wait to
+say, or say in a different form.
+This feels like
+agitation and stress
+because you're actually
+suppressing a circuit.
+We actually can see examples
+of what happens when you're not
+doing this well.
+Some of the examples
+come from children.
+If you look at
+young children, they
+don't have the
+forebrain circuitry
+to engage in this
+top-down processing
+until they reach
+age 22 or even 25.
+But in young children, you see
+this in a really robust way.
+A kid sees a piece of candy
+that it wants and will just
+reach out and grab it,
+whereas an adult probably
+would ask if they
+could have a piece
+or wait until they were
+offered a piece, in most cases.
+People that have damage
+to the certain areas
+of the frontal lobes don't
+have this kind of restriction.
+They'll just blurt things out.
+They'll just say things.
+Impulsivity is a lack
+of top-down control,
+a lack of top-down processing.
+So a lot of the motor system
+is designed to just work
+in a reflexive way.
+And then when we decide we
+want to learn something,
+or do something, or
+not do something,
+we have to engage in this
+top-down restriction,
+and it feels like
+agitation because it's
+accompanied by the release
+of a neuromodulator called
+norepinephrine, which in
+the body we call adrenaline,
+and it actually makes
+us feel agitated.
+So for those of you that are
+trying to learn something new,
+or to learn to suppress
+your responses,
+or be more deliberate and
+careful in your responses,
+that is going to
+feel challenging
+for a particular reason.
+It's going to feel challenging
+because the chemicals
+in your body that are released
+in association with that effort
+are designed to make you
+feel kind of agitated.
+And so this is really
+important to understand,
+because if you want to
+understand neuroplasticity,
+you want to understand how
+to shape your behavior,
+how to shape your
+thinking, how to change
+how you're able to perform
+in any context, the most
+important thing to
+understand is that it
+requires top-down processing.
+It requires this
+feeling of agitation.
+In fact, I would say
+that agitation and strain
+is the entry point
+to neuroplasticity.
+So let's take a look at
+what neuroplasticity is.
+Neuroplasticity is the
+ability for these connections
+in the brain and body to change
+in response to experience.
+And what's so incredible
+about the human nervous system
+in particular is that we can
+direct our own neural changes.
+We can decide that we
+want to change our brain.
+In other words, our
+brain can change itself
+and our nervous system
+can change itself.
+For a long time, it was
+thought that neuroplasticity
+was the unique gift of
+young animals and humans,
+that it could only
+occur when we're young.
+And in fact, the young
+brain is incredibly plastic.
+Children can learn
+three languages
+without an accent
+reflexively, whereas adults,
+it's very challenging.
+It takes a lot more effort
+and strain, a lot more
+of that duration,
+path, outcome kind
+of thinking in order to
+achieve those plastic changes.
+We now know, however, that
+the adult brain can change
+in response to experience.
+In order to understand
+that process,
+we really have to
+understand something
+that might at first seem totally
+divorced from neuroplasticity,
+but actually lies at the
+center of neuroplasticity.
+And for any of you that
+are interested in changing
+your nervous system so that
+something that you want
+can go from being very hard, or
+seem almost impossible and out
+of reach, to being
+very reflexive,
+this is especially important
+to pay attention to.
+Plasticity in the adult
+human nervous system
+is gated, meaning it is
+controlled by neuromodulators.
+These things that we
+talked about earlier,
+dopamine and serotonin, and
+one in particular called
+acetylcholine, are what
+open up plasticity.
+They literally unveil plasticity
+and allow brief periods of time
+in which whatever information,
+whatever thing we're sensing,
+or perceiving, or thinking,
+or whatever emotions we feel,
+can literally be mapped
+in the brain such
+that later it will
+become much easier for us
+to experience and
+feel that thing.
+Now this has a dark side
+and a positive side.
+The dark side is it's actually
+very easy to get neuroplasticity
+as an adult through
+traumatic, or terrible,
+or challenging experiences.
+But the important question
+is to say why is that?
+And the reason
+that's the case is
+because when something
+very bad happens,
+there's the release of two sets
+of neuromodulators in the brain.
+Epinephrine, which
+tends to make us
+feel alert and agitated,
+which is associated
+with most bad circumstances,
+and acetylcholine,
+which tends to
+create a even more
+intense and focused
+perceptual spotlight.
+Remember earlier we were
+talking about perception
+and how it's kind
+of like a spotlight.
+Acetylcholine makes that
+light particularly bright
+and particularly restricted to
+one region of our experience.
+And it does that by making
+certain neurons in our brain
+and body active much
+more than all the rest.
+So acetylcholine is sort of
+like a highlighter or marker
+upon which neuroplasticity then
+comes in later and says, wait,
+which neurons were active in
+this particularly alerting phase
+of whatever, day
+or night, whenever
+this thing happened to happen.
+So the way it works is this.
+You can think of
+epinephrine as creating
+this alertness and this
+kind of unbelievable level
+of increased attention
+compared to what
+you were experiencing before.
+And you can think
+of acetylcholine
+as being the molecule
+that highlights
+whatever it happens during that
+period of heightened alertness.
+So just to be clear,
+it's epinephrine creates
+the alertness that's coming
+from a subset of neurons
+in the brainstem, if
+you're interested,
+and acetylcholine coming
+from an area of the forebrain
+is tagging or marking
+the neurons that
+are particularly active
+during this heightened
+level of alertness.
+Now, that marks the
+cells, the neurons,
+and the synapses
+for strengthening,
+for becoming more likely
+to be active in the future,
+even without us
+thinking about it.
+OK?
+So, in bad
+circumstances, this all
+happens without us
+having to do much.
+When we want
+something to happen,
+however, we want to
+learn a new language,
+we want to learn a new skill, we
+want to become more motivated,
+what do we know for certain?
+We know that process of
+getting neuroplasticity
+so that we have more
+focus, more motivation,
+absolutely requires the
+release of epinephrine.
+We have to have alertness
+in order to have focus,
+and we have to
+have focus in order
+to direct those plastic
+changes to particular parts
+of our nervous system.
+Now, this has
+immense implications
+in thinking about
+the various tools,
+whether or not those are
+chemical tools, or machine
+tools, or just self-induced
+regimens of how long
+or how intensely you're
+going to focus in order
+to get neuroplasticity.
+But there's another side to it.
+The dirty secret
+of neuroplasticity
+is that no neuroplasticity
+occurs during the thing you're
+trying to learn, during
+the terrible event,
+during the great event, during
+the thing that you're really
+trying to shape
+and learn, nothing
+is actually changing between the
+neurons that is going to last.
+All the neuroplasticity,
+the strengthening
+of the synapses, the addition in
+some cases of new nerve cells,
+or at least connections between
+nerve cells, all of that
+occurs at a very different
+phase of life, which
+is when we are in sleep
+and non-sleep deep rest.
+And so neuroplasticity,
+which is the kind
+of Holy Grail of human
+experience, of this
+is the new year and everyone's
+thinking New Year's resolutions.
+And right now, perhaps
+everything's organized
+and people are highly motivated.
+But what happens in
+March, or April, or May?
+Well, that all depends on
+how much attention and focus
+one can continually
+bring to whatever
+it is they're trying
+to learn, so much so
+that agitation and
+a feeling of strain
+are actually required for this
+process of neuroplasticity
+to get triggered.
+But the actual rewiring
+occurs during periods of sleep
+and non-sleep deep rest.
+There's a study
+published last year
+that's particularly relevant
+here that I want to share.
+It was not done
+by my laboratory.
+That showed that 20
+minutes of deep rest, this
+is not deep sleep,
+but essentially doing
+something very hard
+and very intense
+and then taking 20 minutes
+afterward, immediately
+afterwards, to
+deliberately turn off
+the deliberate, focused
+thinking and engagement actually
+accelerated neuroplasticity.
+There's another study
+that's just incredible,
+and we're going to go into
+this in a future episode
+of the podcast not
+too long from now,
+that showed that if people are
+learning a particular skill,
+it could be a language
+skill or a motor skill,
+and they hear a tone just
+playing in the background,
+the tone is playing
+periodically in the background,
+like just a bell.
+In deep sleep, if
+that bell is played,
+learning is much
+faster for the thing
+that they were learning
+while they were awake.
+It somehow cues the
+nervous system in sleep,
+doesn't even have
+to be in dreaming,
+that something that
+happened in the waking phase
+was especially important.
+So much so that that bell
+is sort of a Pavlovian cue,
+it's sort of a reminder
+to the sleeping brain,
+oh, you need to remember what
+it is that you were learning
+at that particular time of day.
+And the learning rates and
+the rates of retention,
+meaning how much
+people can remember
+from the thing they learned,
+are significantly higher
+under those conditions.
+So I'm going to talk about how
+to apply all this knowledge
+in a little bit more in
+this podcast episode,
+but also in future episodes.
+But it really speaks to
+the really key importance
+of sleep and focus,
+these two opposite ends
+of our attentional state.
+When we're in sleep, these DPOs,
+duration, path, and outcome
+analysis, are impossible.
+We just can't do that.
+We are only in relation to
+what's happening inside of us.
+So sleep is key.
+Also key are periods
+of non-sleep deep rest
+where we're turning off our
+analysis of duration, path,
+and outcome, in particular,
+for the thing that we were just
+trying to learn, and we're
+in this kind of liminal state
+where our attention is
+kind of drifting all over.
+It turns out that's very
+important for the consolidation,
+for the changes between
+the nerve cells, that
+will allow what we
+were trying to learn
+to go from being deliberate,
+and hard, and stressful,
+and a strain to
+easy and reflexive.
+This also points to how
+different people, including
+many modern clinicians,
+are thinking
+about how to prevent bad
+circumstances, traumas,
+from routing their way into
+our nervous system permanently.
+It says that you might
+want to interfere
+with certain aspects
+of brain states
+that are away from the
+bad thing that happened,
+the brain states that happened
+the next day, or the next month,
+or the next year.
+And also, I want
+you to be aware.
+I want to make sure
+that I pay attention
+to the fact that
+for many of you,
+you're thinking about
+neuroplasticity,
+not just in changing your
+nervous system to add something
+new, but to also get rid of
+things that you don't like,
+that you want to
+forget bad experiences,
+or at least remove the
+emotional contingency
+of a bad relationship, or a
+bad relationship to some thing,
+or some person, or some event.
+Learning to fear certain things
+less, to eliminate a phobia,
+to erase a trauma.
+The memories themselves
+don't get erased.
+I'm sorry to say that the
+memories don't themselves
+get erased, but the emotional
+load of memories can be reduced.
+And there are a number
+of different ways
+that that can happen.
+But they all require
+this thing that we're
+calling neuroplasticity.
+We're going to have a
+large number of discussions
+about neuroplasticity in depth.
+But the most important
+thing to understand
+is that it is indeed
+a two phase process.
+What governs the transition
+between alert and focused,
+and these deep rest
+and deep sleep states
+is a system in our
+brain and body,
+a certain aspect of
+the nervous system,
+called the autonomic
+nervous system.
+And it is immensely
+important to understand
+how this autonomic
+nervous system works.
+It has names like the
+sympathetic nervous system
+and parasympathetic
+nervous system,
+which frankly, are complicated
+names because they're
+a little bit misleading.
+Sympathetic is the one that's
+associated with more alertness.
+Parasympathetic
+is the one that's
+associated with more calmness.
+And it gets really
+misleading because
+the sympathetic nervous
+system sounds like sympathy,
+and then people think
+it's related to calm.
+I'm going to call it
+the alertness system
+and the calmness system
+because even though sympathetic
+and parasympathetics
+are sometimes used,
+people really get confused.
+So, the way to think about
+the autonomic nervous system
+and the reason it's important
+for every aspect of your life,
+but in particular
+for neuroplasticity
+and engaging in these
+focused states and then
+these defocused states, is that
+it works sort of like a seesaw.
+Every 24 hours, we're all
+familiar with the fact
+that when we wake
+up in the morning,
+we might be a little bit
+groggy, but then generally we're
+more alert.
+And then as evening
+comes around,
+we tend to become a little
+more relaxed and sleepy,
+and eventually at some point
+at night, we go to sleep.
+So we go from alert
+to deeply calm.
+And as we do that,
+we go from an ability
+to engage in these very
+focused duration, path,
+outcome types of analyzes
+to states in sleep
+that are completely divorced
+from duration, path,
+and outcome in which
+everything is completely
+random and untethered in terms
+of our sensations, perceptions,
+and feelings, and so forth.
+So every 24 hours, we
+have a phase of our day
+that is optimal for thinking,
+and focusing, and learning,
+and neuroplasticity, and
+doing all sorts of things.
+We have energy as well.
+And at another phase
+of our day, we're tired
+and we have no ability to focus.
+We have no ability to engage
+in duration, path, outcome
+types of analyzes.
+And it's interesting
+that both phases
+are important for shaping our
+nervous system in the ways
+that we want.
+So if we want to
+engage neuroplasticity
+and we want to get the most
+out of our nervous system,
+we each have to master both the
+transition between wakefulness
+and sleep and the transition
+between sleep and wakefulness.
+Now, so much has been made
+of the importance of sleep,
+and it is critically important
+for wound healing, for learning,
+as I just mentioned,
+for consolidating
+learning, for all aspects
+of our immune system.
+It is the one period
+of time in which
+we're not doing
+these duration, path,
+and outcome types of analyzes.
+And it is critically important
+to all aspects of our health,
+including our longevity.
+Much less has been
+made, however,
+of how to get
+better at sleeping,
+how to get better
+at the process that
+involves falling asleep,
+staying asleep, and accessing
+these states of mind and body
+that involve total paralysis.
+Most people don't know
+this, but you're actually
+paralyzed during
+much of your sleep
+so that you can't
+act out your dreams,
+presumably, but also
+where your brain
+is in a total idle state where
+it's not controlling anything,
+it's just left to free run.
+And there are certain
+things that we can all
+do in order to master
+that transition, in order
+to get better at sleeping.
+And it involves much more
+than just how much we sleep.
+We're all being told, of course,
+that we need to sleep more,
+but there's also the
+issue of sleep quality,
+accessing those deep
+states of non-DPO thinking.
+Accessing the right
+timing of sleep.
+Not a lot has been
+discussed publicly as
+far as I'm aware of
+when to time your sleep.
+I think we all can appreciate
+that sleeping for half an hour
+throughout the day, so that
+you get a total of eight hours
+of sleep every 24-hour cycle is
+probably very different and not
+optimal compared to a solid
+block of eight hours of sleep.
+Although there are people
+that have tried this.
+I think it's been written
+about in various books.
+Not many people can
+stick to that schedule.
+Incidentally, I think it's
+called the Uberman schedule.
+Not to be confused with
+the Huberman schedule,
+because first of
+all, my schedule
+doesn't look anything like that.
+And second of all, I would never
+attempt such a sleeping regime.
+The other thing that is
+really important to understand
+is that we have not explored
+as a culture, the rhythms that
+occur in our waking states.
+So much has been focused
+on the value of sleep
+and the importance of
+sleep, which is great,
+but I don't think that most
+people are paying attention
+to what's happening
+in their waking states
+and when their brain is
+optimized for focus, when
+their brain is optimized for
+these DPOs, this duration, path,
+outcome types of engagements
+for learning and for changing,
+and when their brain is
+probably better suited
+for more reflexive
+thinking and behaviors.
+And it turns out that there is a
+vast amount of scientific data,
+which points to the
+existence of what
+are called ultradian rhythms.
+You may have heard
+of circadian rhythms.
+Circadian means
+circa, about a day.
+So it's 24-hour rhythms because
+the Earth spins once every 24
+hours.
+Ultradian rhythms occur
+throughout the day
+and they require less time.
+They're shorter.
+The most important ultradian
+rhythm for sake of this
+discussion is the 90-minute
+rhythm that we're going through
+all the time in our ability
+to attend and focus.
+And in sleep, our sleep is
+broken up into 90-minute
+segments.
+Early in the night, we have
+more phase 1 and phase 2 lighter
+sleep.
+And then we go into our deeper
+phase 3 and phase 4 sleep.
+And then we return
+to phase 1, 2, 3, 4.
+So all night, you're going
+through these ultradian rhythms
+of stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
+It's repeating.
+Most people perhaps know that.
+Maybe they don't.
+But when you wake
+up in the morning,
+these ultradian
+rhythms continue,
+and it turns out that we
+are optimized for focus
+and attention within
+these 90-minute cycles,
+so that at the beginning of
+one of these 90-minute cycles,
+maybe you sit down to learn
+something new or to engage
+in some new
+challenging behavior,
+for the first 5 or 10 minutes
+of one of those cycles,
+it's well known that the
+brain, and the neural circuits,
+and the neuromodulators are
+not going to be optimally tuned
+to whatever it is
+you're trying to do.
+But as you drop deeper
+into that 90-minute cycle,
+your ability to focus, and to
+engage in this DPO process,
+and to direct neuroplasticity,
+and to learn is actually much
+greater.
+And then you eventually
+pop out of that at the end
+of the 90-minute cycle.
+So these cycles are
+occurring in sleep
+and these cycles are
+occurring in wakefulness.
+And all of those are governed
+by this seesaw of alertness
+to calmness that we call the
+autonomic nervous system.
+So if you want to master and
+control your nervous system,
+regardless of what tool you
+reach to, whether or not
+it's a pharmacologic tool, or
+whether or not it's a behavioral
+tool, or whether or not it's a
+brain machine interface tool,
+it's vitally important to
+understand that your entire
+existence is occurring in
+these 90-minute cycles,
+whether or not you're
+asleep or awake.
+And so you really need to
+learn how to wedge into those
+90-minute cycles.
+And for instance, it
+would be completely
+crazy and counterproductive to
+try and just learn information
+while in deep sleep by
+listening to that information
+because you're not
+able to access it.
+It would be perfectly
+good, however,
+to engage in a focused
+bout of learning each day.
+And now we know how long
+that focused bout of learning
+should be.
+It should be at least
+one 90-minute cycle,
+and the expectation should be
+that the early phase of that
+cycle is going to
+be challenging.
+It's going to hurt.
+It's not going to feel natural.
+It's not going to feel like
+flow, but that you can learn
+and the circuits
+of your brain that
+are involved in
+focus and motivation
+can learn to drop in to
+a mode of more focus,
+get more neuroplasticity,
+in other words,
+by engaging these ultradian
+cycles at the appropriate times
+of day.
+For instance, some people
+are very good learners early
+in the day and not so
+good in the afternoon.
+So you can start to
+explore this process, even
+without any information about
+the underlying neurochemicals,
+by simply paying attention, not
+just to when you go to sleep
+and when you wake up
+each morning, how deep
+or how shallow your sleep
+felt to you subjectively,
+but also throughout the
+day, when your brain tends
+to be most anxious
+because it turns out
+that has a correlate
+related to perception
+that we will talk about.
+You can ask yourself,
+when are you most focused?
+When are you least anxious?
+When do you feel most motivated?
+When do you feel
+most least motivated?
+By understanding how
+the different aspects
+of your perception, sensation,
+feeling, thought, and actions
+tend to want to be engaged
+or not want to be engaged,
+you develop a very
+good window into what's
+going to be required to shift
+your ability to focus or shift
+your ability to engage
+in creative type thinking
+at different times of
+day, should you choose.
+And so that's where we're
+heading going forward.
+It all starts with
+mastering this seesaw that
+is the autonomic nervous
+system, that at a coarse level
+is a transition between
+wakefulness and sleep.
+But at a finer level,
+and just as important,
+are the various cycles, these
+ultradian 90-minute cycles that
+govern our life all the
+time, 24/7 hours a day,
+every day of our life.
+And so we're going to talk
+about how you can take control
+of the autonomic nervous
+system so that you can better
+access neuroplasticity,
+better access sleep, even take
+advantage of the phase that is
+the transition between sleep
+and waking to access
+things like creativity
+and so forth, all based on
+studies that have been published
+over the last 100 years, mainly
+within the last 10 years,
+and some that are
+very, very new,
+and that point to the
+use of specific tools
+that will allow you to get the
+most out of your nervous system.
+So today we covered
+a lot of information.
+It was sort of a whirlwind
+tour of everything from neurons
+and synapses to
+neuroplasticity and
+the autonomic nervous system.
+We will revisit a lot of
+these themes going forward.
+So if all of that didn't sink in
+in one pass, please don't worry.
+We will come back to these
+themes over and over again.
+I wanted to equip
+you with a language
+that we're all developing
+a kind of common base set
+of information going forward.
+And I hope the information
+is valuable to you
+and you're thinking
+about what is working
+well for you, and what's
+working less well,
+and what's been
+exceedingly challenging
+and what's been easy
+for you in terms
+of your pursuit of particular
+behaviors or emotional states,
+where your challenges or
+the challenges of people
+that you know might reside.
+So thank you so much for
+your time and attention.
+And above all, thank you for
+your interest in science.
+[MUSIC PLAYING]

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+ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome
+to Huberman Lab Essentials,
+where we revisit past
+episodes for the most
+potent and actionable
+science-based tools
+for mental health, physical
+health, and performance.
+[MUSIC PLAYING]
+I'm Andrew Huberman
+and I'm a professor
+of neurobiology
+and ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+Today's podcast episode is
+about jet lag, shift work.
+And we are going to
+discuss protocols
+that are backed by
+science that can support
+particular tools that you can
+use to combat things like jet
+lag, offset some of the
+negative effects of shift work,
+and make life easier
+for the new parent,
+as well as for
+the newborn child,
+the adolescent, anyone
+that wants to sleep better,
+feel better when they're
+awake, et cetera.
+Let's just take a
+step back for a moment
+and remind everybody
+what we're talking about.
+The circadian rhythm is a
+24-hour rhythm in all sorts
+of functions.
+The most prominent
+one is a rhythm
+in our feelings of
+wakefulness and sleepiness.
+You also have a rhythm in
+sleepiness and wakefulness
+that correlates with that.
+We tend to be sleepy as
+our temperature is falling,
+getting lower.
+And we tend to be more
+awake or waking when
+our temperature is increasing.
+We have a clock over the roof
+of our mouth, a group of neurons
+called the
+suprachiasmatic nucleus.
+That clock generates
+a 24-hour rhythm.
+And that clock is
+entrained, meaning,
+it is matched to the external
+light-dark cycle, which
+is, no surprise, 24 hours.
+Spinning of the
+Earth takes 24 hours.
+So our cells, our
+organs, our wakefulness,
+our temperature, but
+also our metabolism,
+our immune system,
+our mood, all of that
+is tethered to the
+outside light-dark cycle.
+And if we are living our life in
+a perfect way, where we wake up
+in the morning, and
+we view sunlight
+as it crosses the horizon,
+and then by evening we
+catch a little sunlight,
+and then at night,
+we're in complete
+darkness, we will be,
+more or less, perfectly matched
+to the external or ambient
+light-dark cycle.
+Very few of us do that
+because of these things
+that we call artificial
+lights and this other thing
+that we call life demands.
+So today, we're going to talk
+about when we get pulled away
+from that rhythm.
+So what is the perfect day?
+What does that look like from
+a circadian sleep-wakefulness
+standpoint?
+You basically want to get as
+much light, ideally, sunlight,
+but as much light into your
+eyes during the period of each
+24-hour cycle when
+you want to be awake,
+when you want to be alert.
+And you want to get as
+little light into your eyes
+at the times of that 24-hour
+cycle when you want to be asleep
+or drowsy and falling asleep.
+How much is enough?
+Well, a good number to shoot
+for, as a rule of thumb,
+is to try and get exposure to
+at least 100,000 lux before 9:00
+AM, 10:00 AM, maybe,
+but before 9:00 AM,
+assuming you're waking up
+sometime between 5:00 and 8:00
+AM.
+The mechanism of
+circadian clock setting
+involves these
+neurons in your eye
+that send electrical
+signals to this clock
+above the roof of your mouth.
+And that system sums,
+meaning, it adds photons.
+It's a very slow system.
+So here, we're talking about
+trying to get that at least
+100,000 photons,
+but not all at once.
+So what do you do?
+You go outside.
+Going outside, even on a cloudy
+day, could be 7,000, 10,000 lux.
+It's really
+remarkable how bright
+it is, meaning, how much photon
+energy is coming through.
+So try and get 100,000
+lux before that 9:00 AM.
+Now, if you can't
+do that because you
+live in an area of the
+world where it's just not
+bright enough, some people have
+sent me pictures from Northern
+England, it's just not bright
+enough in winter, then sure,
+you can resort to using
+artificial lights in order
+to get enough photons.
+And I'm putting out this 100,000
+lux number as a target to get
+each day before 9:00 AM.
+You can, in theory, get it
+all from artificial lights,
+but there are some special
+qualities about sunlight
+that make sunlight
+the better stimulus.
+Then I've recommended, based
+on scientific literature,
+that you look at sunlight
+sometime around the time when
+the sun is setting.
+And the reason for
+that, of course,
+is because it adjusts down
+the sensitivity of your eyes.
+Because here's the
+diabolical thing--
+while we need a lot of photon
+energy early in the day to wake
+up our system and set our
+circadian clock and prepare us
+for a good night's sleep
+14 to 16 hours later,
+it takes very little photon
+energy to reset and shift
+our clock after 8:00 PM.
+And that's why you want to,
+as much as you safely can,
+avoid bright light and even
+not so bright light between
+the hours of 10:00 or
+11:00 PM and 4:00 AM.
+So let's talk about
+shifting clocks,
+because for the
+jet-lagged person,
+this ability to shift the
+clock with light temperature,
+exercise, and food is
+vitally important for getting
+onto the new local schedule.
+And there's so much out
+there about jet lag.
+Today, I'm going to dial it down
+to one very specific parameter
+that all of you can figure
+out without any technology
+or devices and can apply for
+when you travel for work,
+or pleasure, or anytime
+you're jet-lagged.
+And I want to
+absolutely emphasize
+that you don't have to
+travel to get jet-lagged.
+Many of you are jet-lagged.
+You're jet-lagged
+because you're looking
+at your phone in the
+middle of the night.
+You're jet-lag because
+you're waking up
+at different times a day.
+Your jet-lagged because you're
+exercise is on a chaotic regime,
+some days at this time,
+some days at that time.
+But there are some simple
+things that you can do.
+So that's where we're headed.
+Let's talk about
+what jet lag is.
+There are quality,
+peer-reviewed papers,
+showing that jet lag
+will shorten your life.
+Jet lag is a serious thing.
+Now, here's what's interesting.
+Traveling westward on
+the globe is always
+easier than traveling eastward.
+OK?
+It's interesting because the
+effects of jet lag on longevity
+have shown that traveling East
+takes more years off your life
+than traveling West.
+Now, here's what's interesting.
+When we think about the
+effects of jet lag on longevity
+or this idea that it
+can shorten our lives,
+we have to ask ourselves, why?
+Why is that?
+And it turns out, there's
+a pretty simple explanation
+for this.
+We've talked before about
+the autonomic nervous system,
+this set of neurons
+in our spinal cord,
+and body, and brain that
+regulate our wakefulness
+and our sleepiness.
+It turns out that human beings
+and probably, most species,
+are better able to
+activate and stay alert
+than they are to shut
+down their nervous system
+and go to sleep on demand.
+So if you really have to
+push, and you really have
+to stay awake, you can do it.
+You can stay up later.
+But falling asleep
+earlier is harder.
+And that's why
+traveling East has
+a number of different
+features associated
+with it that because
+you're traveling East,
+you're trying to
+go to bed earlier.
+As a Californian, if
+I go to New York City,
+I've got to get to
+bed three hours early
+and wake up three hours
+earlier, much harder
+than coming back to
+California and just staying
+up a few more hours.
+And this probably has roots
+in evolutionary adaptation,
+where under conditions where
+we need to suddenly gather
+up and go, or forage
+for food, or fight,
+or do any number of
+different things,
+that we can push ourselves
+through the release
+of adrenaline and
+epinephrine to stay awake,
+whereas being able to slow down
+and deliberately fall asleep
+is actually much harder to do.
+So there's an asymmetry to
+our autonomic nervous system
+that plays out in the
+asymmetry of jet lag.
+All right.
+Well, let's think about
+travel and what happens.
+Let's say, you're not
+going eastward or westward,
+but you're going North or South.
+So if you go from, for instance,
+Washington, DC to Santiago,
+Chile, you're just
+going North and South.
+You're not really moving
+into a different time zone.
+You're not shifting.
+So you will experience
+travel fatigue.
+And it turns out that jet
+lag has two elements-- travel
+fatigue and time zone jet lag.
+Time zone jet lag is
+simply the inability
+of local sunlight
+and local darkness
+to match to your internal
+rhythm, this endogenous rhythm
+that you have.
+So before we get too
+complicated and too down
+in the weeds about this,
+I want to just throw out
+a couple important things.
+First of all, some people
+suffer from jet lag a lot,
+other people, not so much.
+Most people experience worse
+jet lag as they get older.
+There are reasons for that,
+because early in life,
+patterns of
+melatonin release are
+very stable and flat and very
+high, actually, in children.
+Then it becomes cyclic
+during puberty, meaning,
+it comes on once every 24 hours
+and turns off once every 24
+hours.
+And then as we get older, the
+cycles get more disrupted.
+And we become more vulnerable to
+even small changes in schedule,
+et cetera, meal times.
+So jet lag gets worse as we age.
+I want to make changing
+your internal rhythm really
+easy, or at least,
+as easy and as simple
+as one could possibly
+make it, I believe.
+What I want to talk
+about is perhaps,
+one of the most
+important things to know
+about your body and brain,
+which is called your temperature
+minimum.
+Your temperature minimum is the
+point in every 24-hour cycle
+when your temperature is lowest.
+Now, how do you measure
+that without a thermometer?
+It tends to fall 90
+minutes to 2 hours
+before your average waking time.
+Temperature, actually,
+is the signal
+by which this clock above
+the roof of your mouth,
+in trains or collectively,
+pushes all the cells
+and tissues of our body to
+be on the same schedule.
+Temperature is the effector.
+And once you hear
+that, there should
+be an immediate, of course,
+because how else would you
+get all these
+different diverse cell
+types to follow one pattern?
+A pancreatic cell does
+something very different
+than a spleen cell or a neuron.
+They're all doing different
+things at different rates.
+So the temperature
+signal can go out.
+And then each one of those can
+interpret the temperature signal
+as one unified and consistent
+theme of their environment.
+Here's the deal.
+If you expose your eyes to
+bright light in the four hours
+after your temperature
+minimum, your circadian clock
+will shift so that you
+will tend to get up earlier
+and go to sleep earlier
+in the subsequent days.
+It's what's called a phase
+advance, if you'd like
+to read up on this further.
+You advance your clock.
+However, if you
+view bright light
+in the four to six hours before
+your temperature minimum,
+you will tend to phase
+delay your clock.
+You will tend to wake up
+later and go to sleep later.
+I tend to wake up at about 6:00
+AM, sometimes, 6:30, sometimes,
+7:00.
+It depends a lot on what I was
+doing the night before, as I'm
+guessing it does for you.
+But that means that my
+temperature minimum is probably
+somewhere right around 4:30 AM,
+which means that if I wake up
+at 4:30 AM, and I were to
+view bright light at 4:35 AM,
+I'm going to advance my clock.
+I'm going to want to go to bed
+earlier the subsequent night
+and wake up earlier
+the subsequent morning.
+And as I shift my wake up
+time, my temperature minimum
+shifts too.
+If I were to view bright light
+in the four to six hours before
+4:30 AM, guess what,
+the next night,
+I'm going to want
+to stay up later.
+And I'm going to want to wake
+up later the subsequent morning.
+Your temperature minimum
+is a reference point, not
+a temperature reading.
+Again, if you want to measure
+your temperature minimum
+and figure out what it is,
+98 point whatever or 96
+point whatever, that's fine.
+You can do that.
+But that information
+won't help you.
+What you need to know is what
+time your body temperature is
+lowest, and understand that
+in the four hours or so just
+after that time,
+viewing light will
+advance your clock to make
+you want to get up earlier.
+So now, you can start
+to see and understand
+the logic of this system.
+You can now start to shift
+that temperature according
+to your travel needs.
+Here's one way in which
+you might do that.
+Let's say, I am going
+to travel to Europe,
+which is nine hours ahead,
+typically, from California.
+I would want to determine my
+temperature minimum, which,
+for me, is about 4:30
+AM, maybe 5:00 AM.
+And I would want to start
+getting up at about 5:30 AM
+and getting some bright
+light exposure, presumably,
+from artificial sources because
+the sunlight isn't going to be
+out at that time, maybe
+even exercising as well,
+maybe even eating a
+meal at that time.
+You would want to start
+doing that two or three
+days before travel, because
+once I land in Europe,
+chances are, just viewing the
+sunrise or sunset in Europe
+is not going to allow me to
+shift my circadian clock.
+Some people say, get sunlight
+in your eyes when you land,
+but that's not going to work,
+because one of two things
+is likely to happen.
+With a nine-hour
+shift like that,
+either I'm going
+to view sunlight
+at a time that corresponds
+to the circadian dead zone,
+the time in which my circadian
+clock can't be shifted,
+or I'm going to end up viewing
+sunlight at a time that
+corresponds to the
+four to six hour window
+before my temperature minimum.
+So it's going to shift me in
+exactly the opposite direction
+that I want to go.
+So it can be very, very
+challenging for people
+to adjust to jet lag.
+So you need to ask, am
+I traveling East or am
+I traveling West?
+Am I trying to advance my
+clock or delay my clock?
+Remember, viewing light,
+exercise, and eating
+in the four to six hours
+before your temperature minimum
+will delay your clock.
+Eating, viewing
+sunlight, and exercising,
+you don't have to do all three,
+but some combination of those,
+in the four to six hours after
+your temperature minimum,
+will advance your clock.
+And this is a powerful
+mechanism by which
+you can shift your
+clock anywhere from one
+to three hours per day,
+which is remarkable.
+That means your
+temperature minimum
+is going to shift out as
+much as three hours, which
+can make it such that you can
+travel all the way to Europe.
+And in as long as you've
+prepared for a day or so,
+by doing what I
+described, back home,
+and then doing it
+when you arrive,
+you can potentially accomplish
+the entire shift within anywhere
+from 24 to 36 hours.
+And so a lot of people
+are landing in Europe,
+getting sunlight in
+their eyes, and throwing
+their clock out of whack, or
+not shifting their clock at all.
+This brings me to the other
+thing that's highly recommended,
+and I've mentioned
+this before, but you
+want to eat on the
+local meal schedule.
+If it's in your
+practice to fast, fast.
+That's fine.
+But when you eat, you want to
+eat within the local schedule
+for alertness.
+OK.
+I talked about
+traveling eastward,
+but we haven't talked
+about traveling westward.
+Let's say, you're traveling
+from New York to California
+or from Europe to California.
+The challenge there tends to be,
+how can you stay up late enough?
+Now, some people
+are able to do this,
+because, as I mentioned earlier,
+the autonomic nervous system is
+asymmetrically wired
+such that it's easier
+to stay up later than we
+would naturally want to,
+than it is to go
+to sleep earlier.
+So let's say, you land.
+And it's 4:00 PM.
+And you're just dying.
+You're in California.
+You came from Europe.
+It's 4:00 PM.
+And you really, really
+want to go to sleep.
+That's where the use of things
+like caffeine, exercise,
+and sunlight can shift you.
+If it's after your
+temperature peak,
+then viewing sunlight
+around 6:00 PM, or 8:00 PM,
+or artificial light, if
+there isn't sunlight,
+will help shift you later.
+It's going to delay your clock.
+And you're going to be
+able to stay up later.
+The worst thing
+you can do is take
+a nap that was intended to
+last 20 minutes or an hour.
+I do this routinely.
+And then wake up four
+hours later, or you wake up
+and it's midnight, and you
+can't fall back asleep.
+You really want to
+avoid doing that.
+So provided, it's not
+excessive amounts,
+stimulants like caffeine
+in coffee or tea
+can really help you push
+past that afternoon barrier
+and get you to sleep more
+like on the local schedule
+and eating on the
+local schedule as well.
+A number of people have asked
+about the use of melatonin
+to induce sleepiness.
+Melatonin is this hormone that's
+released from the pineal gland.
+Melatonin induces sleepiness.
+Melatonin during
+development is also
+responsible for timing the
+secretion of certain hormones
+that are vitally
+important for puberty.
+Does melatonin control
+the onset of puberty?
+Not directly, but indirectly.
+Melatonin inhibits
+something called
+gonadotropin-releasing
+hormone, which
+is a hormone that's released
+from your hypothalamus, also
+roughly above the roof of
+your mouth in your brain.
+Gonadotropin-releasing
+hormone is really interesting
+because it stimulates the
+release of another hormone
+called luteinizing hormone,
+which, in females, causes
+estrogen to be released
+within the ovaries,
+it's involved in
+reproductive cycles,
+and in males, stimulates
+testosterone from the Sertoli
+cells of the testes.
+Melatonin is inhibitory to GnRH,
+Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone,
+and therefore, is
+inhibitory to LH,
+Luteinizing Hormone,
+and therefore, is
+inhibitory to
+testosterone and estrogen.
+Just no two ways about it.
+So melatonin is used widely
+for inducing sleepiness
+when you want to fall
+asleep in the new location
+that you've arrived.
+You can't fall asleep.
+You take melatonin.
+And it helps you fall asleep.
+It does not help
+you stay asleep.
+In addition to that, melatonin
+has been touted as the best way
+to shift your circadian clock.
+I'm happy to go
+on record, saying,
+look, if you need melatonin.
+And you can work with a
+doctor or somebody who really
+understands circadian
+and sleep biology,
+go for it if that's your thing.
+But as always on this
+podcast and elsewhere,
+I have a bias toward
+behavioral things
+that you can
+titrate and control,
+like exposure to light,
+exercise, temperature, et
+cetera, that have much
+bigger margins for safety
+and certainly, don't have
+these other endocrine
+effects that we've been thinking
+about and talking about.
+So if you want to take
+melatonin in the afternoon
+in order to fall asleep, or
+in the evening, be my guest.
+That's up to you.
+Again, you're responsible
+for your health, not me.
+But for many people,
+melatonin is not
+going to be the best solution.
+The best solution is going to be
+to use light, and temperature,
+and exercise on either side
+of the temperature minimum
+to shift your clock,
+both before your trip
+and when you land in
+your new location,
+and your clock starts to shift.
+OK.
+So now, my opinions
+about melatonin.
+Feel free to filter them
+through your own opinions
+and experiences with melatonin.
+And now, you also understand
+what your temperature minimum is
+and how it represents
+an important landmark,
+either side of which, you
+can use light temperature
+and exercise to
+shift your clock.
+Just to remind you a little
+bit about temperature,
+if you want to shift your clock,
+you can take a hot shower.
+And then that will
+have a cooling effect
+after the hot shower.
+And if you were to get into
+a cold shower or an ice bath,
+if you have access to
+one, afterward, there's
+going to be a thermogenic
+effect of your body, increasing
+temperature.
+So you can start to play
+these games with timing
+and hot and cold, with
+meals, whether or not
+you eat or you don't eat,
+and with light exposure,
+whether or not you view light
+or you don't view light.
+So now, you can start
+to see why understanding
+the core mechanics of
+a system can really
+give you the most flexibility.
+And that really underscores
+the most important thing is
+that when you
+understand mechanism,
+it's not about being
+neurotically attached
+to a specific protocol,
+it's the opposite.
+It can give you great
+confidence and flexibility
+in being able to shift your
+body rhythms however you want.
+And when things
+get out of whack,
+you can tuck them
+right back into place.
+One thing that's common is that
+people need to do a quick trip.
+It's not always
+that you're going
+to go on vacation for two weeks
+or work someplace else for weeks
+on end.
+If your trip is
+48 hours or less,
+stay on your home schedule.
+72, that's when you start
+running into trouble.
+The transit time
+is also important,
+but I would say, if
+it's three days or less,
+stay on your home schedule
+as much as you can.
+So let's talk a little bit about
+a different form of jet lag
+that requires no planes,
+no trains, no automobiles,
+and that's shift work.
+Shift work is becoming
+increasingly common.
+Many of us are shift working,
+even though we don't have to.
+We're doing work in the
+middle of the night.
+We are working on our
+computers at odd hours,
+sleeping during the day.
+Here's the deal with shift work.
+If there's one rule of
+thumb for shift work,
+it's that if at
+all possible, you
+want to stay on the same
+schedule for at least 14 days,
+including weekends.
+Now, that should immediately
+cue the non-shift workers
+to the importance
+of not getting too
+far off track on
+the weekend, even
+if you're not a shift worker.
+So sleeping in on Sunday
+is not a good idea.
+The most important
+thing about shift work
+is to stay consistent
+with your schedule.
+If you're going to work a
+shift, where, let's say,
+you start at 4:00 PM and you
+end at 2:00 AM, excuse me,
+then there are some important
+questions that arise.
+For instance, should you
+see light during your shift?
+Well, this is a matter
+of personal choice,
+but ideally, you want to view
+as much light as possible
+and as safely possible
+when you need to be alert.
+So that would mean from
+4:00 PM to 2:00 AM.
+And then you would
+want to sleep.
+So using light as a
+correlate of alertness
+and using darkness as a
+correlate of sleepiness,
+what this means is,
+see as much light
+as you safely can during
+the phase of your day
+when you want to be awake.
+So let's say, you get home after
+this 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM shift.
+You maybe eat something.
+You go to sleep.
+And you wake up.
+And it's noon or 1:00 PM.
+Should you get
+light in your eyes?
+You guessed it.
+You need to know your
+temperature minimum.
+You need to know whether or not
+your temperature is increasing
+or decreasing.
+And now, we can make this
+whole thing even simpler
+and just say, if your
+temperature is decreasing,
+avoid light.
+If your temperature is
+increasing, get light.
+It's that simple.
+I'm going to pause there.
+And then I want to talk
+about kids and the elderly.
+In other words,
+how do we control
+sleep, and circadian
+rhythms, and wakefulness
+in babies, adolescents,
+teens, and aged folks?
+All right.
+As I mentioned earlier,
+melatonin is not cyclic.
+It's not cycling in babies.
+It's more phasic.
+It's being released
+at a constant level.
+And babies tend to be smaller
+than adults, they are.
+And so those concentrations
+of melatonin are very high.
+As a baby grows, those
+concentrations per unit volume
+are going to go down.
+Babies are not born with a
+typical sleep-wake cycle.
+And now, all the parents
+are saying, tell me
+something I didn't know.
+Perhaps, the most
+important thing,
+if you're having to map
+to a baby's schedule
+in order to make sure that
+they're getting changings
+and nursing, et cetera,
+at the appropriate times,
+if you can't sleep or you
+can't sleep continuously,
+to try and maintain your
+autonomic nervous system
+in a place where you're
+not going into heightened
+states of alertness when you
+would ideally be sleeping.
+Now, I realize that this could
+be translated to try and stay
+calm while you're
+sleep-deprived, which
+is very hard for people to do.
+But this is where the
+non-sleep deep rest protocols
+surface again, and
+can potentially
+be very beneficial
+for people to be
+able to recover, not
+necessarily, sleep,
+but for them to maintain
+a certain amount
+of autonomic regulation.
+Last night, I woke up.
+I went to bed about 10:30.
+I woke up at 3:00
+in the morning.
+I knew I wasn't feeling rested.
+I did a NSDR protocol.
+I fell back asleep.
+I woke up at 6:30.
+You need to teach your brain
+and your nervous system
+how to turn off your
+thoughts and go to sleep.
+And ideally, you do
+that without medication,
+unless there's a real need.
+You do that through these
+behavioral protocols.
+They work, because they
+involve using the body
+to shift the mind, not
+trying to just turn off
+your thoughts in the
+middle of the night.
+Similar circumstances can
+arise if you're taking
+care of a very sick loved one.
+You're up all night.
+Try and stay calm
+using NSDR protocols.
+I know it's harder
+to do than to say,
+but those protocols are there.
+They're free.
+There's research
+to support them.
+Try and get sleep
+whenever you can, but also
+try to get morning sunlight and
+evening sunlight in your eyes
+if you can.
+And if you can't get that,
+use artificial light.
+Once again, I've thrown a
+tremendous amount of information
+at you.
+I hope you will figure out
+your temperature minimum
+and start working with that to
+access the sleep and wakeful
+cycles that you want to access.
+I hope that you'll explore NSDR.
+You have now access
+to a lot of mechanism
+about sleep and wakefulness.
+I really believe that as
+we drill deeper and deeper
+into these mechanisms,
+and you start
+hearing some of the same
+themes again and again,
+you're going to start
+to develop an intuition
+and an understanding of
+how these systems work
+in you and your particular
+life circumstances.
+So know your
+temperature minimum.
+Understand, light in the early
+part of the day is valuable.
+Light when you want to be awake,
+provide it's not so bright,
+it's damaging.
+It's great for
+you, whether or not
+it comes from
+screens or sunlight,
+but sunlight is better.
+Avoid light in the four to six
+hours before your temperature
+minimum, or else, you're
+going to delay your clock,
+unless you're traveling, and
+that's what you want to do.
+OK?
+Use temperature.
+Increase temperature
+to shift your clock.
+Decrease temperature
+to delay your clock.
+Thanks so much for your
+time and attention.
+I really appreciate it.
+See you next time on the
+Huberman Lab podcast.
+And as always, thanks for
+your interest in science.
+[MUSIC PLAYING]

Data/transcripts/JnlSDaBjCCU_20241225194450.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+Is going to failure
+more effective than not going to failure?
+It's going to generate a
+lot of discussion in the
+comments, I can't wait to see it.
+So, I'm going cite quite a bit of work
+from my powerlifting coach, Zac Robinson,
+because he is at FAU,
+just finished his PhD,
+and did a lot of meta-regressions
+and meta-analyses on this exact topic.
+So, I'll give you the answers first
+that are straight down the
+line scientific answers,
+and then I'll explain things.
+For muscular hypertrophy, you
+need to get close to failure,
+but you probably don't
+need to train to failure
+to maximize hypertrophy, but
+you've got to get pretty close.
+You can be stronger, but
+to maximize strength,
+you're probably better off not
+touching failure very often.
+So, there are a few studies
+now looking at this,
+showing that I think there
+was one study recently,
+and I can't remember the exact details,
+but that I remember it
+being pretty well-designed.
+And the takeaway was hypertrophy
+was similar between the groups,
+but the group that went to failure
+or stayed a few reps shy of failure
+actually got stronger
+compared to the group
+that was taking most sets to failure.
+And did they control for total
+volume of work-
+Yes, so.
+Okay, 'cause I can imagine
+not goin' to failure,
+you can do more sets, because you've got.
+And that's exactly-
+More quote unquote
+gas in the tank, right?
+And practically, that may
+be a benefit of stopping
+shy of failure, right?
+But yeah, they control
+for those variables,
+so when we talk about
+volume, the way we define
+that is essentially number of hard sets,
+which a hard set would be
+a set close to failure.
+The general consensus
+is within five reps of failure
+is considered a hard set.
+Now, what I will tell people
+is that may not sound like much,
+most people have never truly
+pushed themselves to failure.

Data/transcripts/Ov4yyK15-K8_20241225194230.txt

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+Did you ever walk up to your buddy
+and say, "You know, my arm really hurts.
+You know, I injured it the other day."
+And what did your buddy do?
+They'd stomp on your foot.
+And you'd say, "Why the
+heck did you do that?"
+You and I must have grown
+up with the same friends.
+Oh, yeah, yeah.
+And they'd say, well, "Now,
+doesn't your arm feel better?"
+And I'd be like, "Well, yeah, it does."
+And yeah, I did grow
+up with those friends.
+I tell this story to some people
+and I sometimes just
+get the wide eyes like,
+"They did what?"
+Yeah, we are not making
+recommendations here.
+No, we're not making recommendations,
+but it's a real phenomenon.
+It was described by Le Bars late '70s,
+'78 or something like that,
+in rodent models initially.
+And what happens is that when you engage
+a nociceptive stimulus
+or a painful stimulus in a site distal
+different from where the primary pain is,
+it engages a brainstem circuit
+that has descending pathways
+to the spinal cord and inhibits pain.
+Amazing.
+Pain inhibits pain. It works.

Data/transcripts/QpoaNklmRPc_20241225194248.txt

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+Let's talk about oral health.
+Most all, not all, but
+most, all mouthwashes,
+especially those containing alcohol,
+are terrible for oral health.
+No specific food, not even
+sugar, causes cavities.
+Cavities are caused by
+bacteria that feed on sugar.
+The real big question
+with toothpaste is always,
+should I use a toothpaste
+that has fluoride,
+or avoid toothpastes that have fluoride?
+Some people, I remember
+this in college, would say,
+"Oh, you know, if you've got a, you know,
+"you've got a, like scratch,
+in the back of your throat,
+"you're getting sick, you
+know, you should drink."
+And that's what they said,
+"You should drink, it's going
+to kill that thing off."
+Well, guess what?
+It does the exact opposite.
+So xylitol is a very potent
+tool for improving oral health.
+So I strongly suggest
+that all of us take a look
+at what we are currently doing
+for our tooth and oral health,
+and consider what
+modifications are best for us.

Data/transcripts/RBK5KLA5Jjg_20241225194446.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,3273 @@
+- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
+where we discuss science
+and science based tools
+for everyday life.
+[cheerful music]
+I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a professor of
+neurobiology and ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+Today, we are discussing aggression.
+I'm going to explain to you that there are
+several different types of
+aggression, for instance,
+reactive aggression versus
+proactive aggression.
+Meaning sometimes people
+will be aggressive
+because they feel threatened
+or they are protecting
+those that they love,
+who also feel threatened.
+There's also proactive
+aggression where people
+go out of their way to
+deliberately try and harm others.
+And there is indirect
+aggression, which is aggression,
+not involving physical
+violence, for instance,
+shaming people and things of that sort.
+It turns out that there are
+different biological mechanisms
+underlying each of the
+different types of aggression.
+And today I will define those for you.
+I'll talk about the neural
+circuits in the brain and body
+that mediate each of the
+different kinds of aggression.
+Talk about some of the
+hormones and peptides
+and neurotransmitters involved.
+I promise to make it
+all accessible to you,
+even if you do not have any
+biology or science background,
+I will also discuss
+tools, psychological tools
+and biological tools that one can use to
+better control aggression.
+Now, right here at the outset,
+I want to acknowledge that any
+discussion about aggression
+has to have an element
+of context within it.
+To be fair, human beings
+invest a lot of money,
+a lot of time, and a lot of energy,
+and indeed can even derive
+pleasure from aggression.
+Later I'll talk about neural
+circuits in the brain and body
+that reinforce, in other words,
+reward through the release
+of chemicals that make people feel good.
+Acts of aggression.
+However, what I'm mainly referring to
+is the context in which
+human beings will pay money
+in order to derive what we
+call vicarious aggression,
+put it simply people spend
+an enormous amount of money
+and time and energy watching
+other people engage in,
+for instance, aggressive sports.
+And we know that observing
+your team winning
+over another team causes the
+release of neurochemicals
+in your brain and body
+that make you feel good.
+And yes, that can make
+you feel more aggressive.
+We also know of course that
+most governments invest
+many billions if not trillions of dollars
+in infrastructure,
+technologies and human beings
+in order to engage in
+aggression if needed,
+so-called military warfare, et cetera.
+So today's discussion will
+include a description of
+aggression in the pathological sense.
+We'll actually talk about an
+explosive aggressive disorder
+that most of you probably
+haven't heard of,
+but is actually far more
+common than perhaps, you know,
+we'll talk about the role of
+things like attention deficit,
+hyperactivity disorder,
+and how that can relate
+to aggression through
+the relationship between
+impulsivity and aggression.
+And we'll talk about verbal aggression,
+physical aggression, proactive aggression,
+as mentioned before,
+and reactive aggression.
+I'm certain that by
+the end of the episode,
+you will come away with a much
+more thorough understanding
+of what this thing that we
+call aggression really is.
+And when you see it in other people,
+I think it will make more sense to you.
+And when you observe it in
+yourself or the impulse to engage
+in aggression, verbal,
+or physical or otherwise,
+I hope that you'll
+understand it better as well.
+And of course, the tools
+that I will describe
+should allow you to modulate and control
+aggressive tendencies or
+predispositions to aggressiveness
+and just generally to be
+able to engage with people
+in a more adaptive way overall.
+Before we begin, I'd like to
+emphasize that this podcast
+is separate from my teaching
+and research roles at Stanford.
+It is however, part of
+my desire and effort
+to bring zero cost to consumer
+information about science
+and science related tools
+to the general public.
+In keeping with that theme,
+I'd like to thank the
+sponsors of today's podcast.
+Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens.
+Athletic Greens is an
+all-in-one vitamin mineral
+probiotic drink that's designed to meet
+all your foundational health needs.
+I started taking Athletic
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+So I'm delighted that they're
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+The reason I started
+taking Athletic Greens
+and the reason I still
+take Athletic Greens
+once or twice a day is that
+it covers all of my basic
+vitamin mineral and probiotic needs.
+The probiotics are
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+There are now abundant data
+showing that the gut microbiome,
+which is basically a
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+in our guts are beneficial
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+your basic needs each day.
+If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,
+you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman
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+Many people, even if they
+get out in the sunlight
+are not getting enough Vitamin D3,
+and the K2 is thought to be beneficial
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+important to our health.
+So again, if you go to
+athleticGreens.com/huberman,
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+Today's episode is also
+brought to us by ROKA.
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+that are the absolute highest quality.
+The company was founded by
+two All-American swimmers
+from Stanford and everything
+about their eyeglasses
+and sunglasses were designed
+with performance in mind,
+I've spent a lifetime
+working on the biology
+of the visual system, I can
+tell you that your visual system
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+Let's talk about aggression.
+I think that many people
+out there are put off
+by aggression, although
+others are drawn to aggression
+both in themselves and when
+observing it in others.
+The reason to talk about aggression is,
+that as mentioned before,
+the context of aggression really matters.
+So there are instances where
+aggression is adaptive.
+For instance, a mother
+protecting her children
+if she's being attacked,
+or if her children are being threatened.
+I think most people would
+agree that so-called
+maternal aggression of that sort,
+provided the context is
+right, is a great thing.
+Protecting our young is
+after all one of the primary
+adaptive drives of our species,
+and thank goodness it is.
+Of course, other forms of aggression
+like unprovoked, proactive aggression,
+somebody simply being
+violent to somebody else,
+even when unprovoked, most of us cringe
+when we see that kind of behavior,
+it can even evoke aggression in people
+when they observe that kind of behavior.
+So again, context really matters,
+but a more general and perhaps
+an even more important reason
+to think about and understand aggression
+is that by understanding the biology
+and psychology of aggression, you will be
+in a much better position to understand
+how all emotional states come to be,
+both in yourself and in others.
+For instance, many of you have
+probably heard the statement
+that I believe arises from pop psychology,
+not from formal academic psychology,
+that aggression is just sadness.
+It's a form of sadness that's amplified
+and it shows up as aggression.
+But when we look at the underlying biology
+and the peer reviewed literature on this,
+nothing could be further from the truth.
+We have distinct circuits
+in the brain for aggression
+versus grief and mourning,
+those are non-overlapping.
+Now that doesn't mean that you
+can't be sad and aggressive
+or in a state of mourning and
+aggressive at the same time,
+but the idea that sadness and aggression
+are one in the same
+thing is simply not true.
+And by understanding that,
+or perhaps by understanding
+that irritability and aggression
+are not the same thing,
+you'll be in a much
+better position to apply
+some of the tools that we will
+talk about in this episode
+in order to be able to
+reduce or eliminate,
+or if it's adaptive to you
+to modulate aggression.
+And yes, there are cases where
+modulating your aggression
+in some cases, even amplifying
+aggression can be adaptive.
+Now this of course is
+not the first discussion
+about the biology of aggression
+or the psychology of aggression.
+And we really can look to the
+beginning of the last century
+as the time in which the formal study
+of aggression really began.
+One of the names that's most
+associated with the formal
+study of aggression is none
+other than Konrad Lorenz.
+Some of you may be
+familiar with that name,
+others of you may not be
+familiar with that name.
+Konrad Lorenz studied
+so-called imprinting behaviors
+and fixed action pattern behaviors.
+He's most famous, at least
+in scientific circles,
+for getting geese to believe
+that he was their parent.
+And if you were to put into
+Google Conrad with a K, Lorenz,
+just as it sounds, Konrad Lorenz, geese,
+you're going to see a
+lot of photos of Conrad
+walking down roads with a
+lot of geese following him
+or swimming in lakes with a
+lot of geese following him.
+He had a habit of geese adopting him
+because of the behaviors
+that he partook in.
+So he would swim out on a lake
+in front of a bunch of
+little geese and then
+they would think that he was the parent
+and they would imprint on him.
+He even lived with these
+animals and they lived with him,
+sort of a strange
+character from what I hear.
+But nonetheless, all
+this work was deserving
+of a Nobel prize because
+what he discovered
+were fixed action patterns.
+That is patterns of behavior
+that could be evoked by a single stimulus.
+Okay. This is really important.
+The idea that you can get a
+whole category of behaviors,
+like swimming behind a parent,
+or looking to somebody for
+comfort, and only them,
+the idea that you could
+get a huge category
+of different behaviors in a
+bunch of different contexts
+triggered by just the presence
+of that person is remarkable,
+because what it suggested
+and what turns out to be true
+is that there are neural circuits,
+not just individual brain
+areas, but collections
+of brain areas that work together
+to engage a pattern of behaviors.
+And that's the first fundamental principle
+that we need to define today,
+that when we talk about aggression,
+we are talking about
+activation of neural circuits,
+not individual brain
+areas, but neural circuits
+that get played out in
+sequence like keys on a piano,
+but that playing out in sequence means
+that aggression is a verb.
+It has a beginning, a middle
+and an end, and it's a process.
+It's not an event.
+And as you'll see, that turns
+out to be very important
+in terms of thinking about
+how one can halt aggression,
+prevent it from happening
+before it's initiated,
+or maybe even prolonging aggression,
+if that's what's needed.
+Now, Konrad Lorenz had no real
+knowledge of neural circuits.
+I mean, obviously he
+knew there was this thing
+that we call a brain and a nervous system,
+and he knew that there
+were chemicals in the brain
+and hormones and things of that sort
+that were likely to play a role,
+but he really didn't take
+any measures to define
+what the neural circuits were,
+frankly, he didn't need to.
+He had his Nobel prize and he
+did all this beautiful work.
+He's known for an abundance of work,
+but he did think about what
+sorts of underlying processes
+could drive something like aggression.
+And he talked about one particular feature
+that's especially important,
+and that's this notion of a pressure.
+The idea that yes, certain
+hormones will bias somebody
+or an animal to be aggressive,
+certain neural transmitter
+states, and you'll learn
+what those are today will bias somebody
+to be more or less aggressive,
+maybe even submissive and passive,
+maybe outright proactively
+aggressive towards anyone
+or anything in front of them.
+And yes, of course there
+will be historical features
+based on their childhood,
+et cetera, et cetera.
+He understood that there will
+be a constellation of things
+that would drive people to be aggressive.
+And he described a so-called pressure,
+almost like a hydraulic pressure.
+Just think about fluid
+pressure in a small container
+being pushed, pushed,
+pushed until the can,
+or the container is ready to explode
+and how multiple features,
+multiple variables
+could impinge on that
+and create that pressure.
+It turns out that's exactly
+the way the system works.
+There is no single brain area
+that flips the switch for aggression.
+Although we'll soon talk
+about a brain structure
+that generally houses the propensity
+and the output of aggression.
+This notion of a hydraulic
+pressure that can drive us
+toward aggressive behavior
+or conversely can be
+very low pressure and keep us
+in a state of non-reactivity,
+maybe even passivity or submissiveness
+is a very important feature
+because it really captures
+the essence of how neural circuits work
+when we're talking about
+primitive behaviors generally.
+And you can start to notice
+this in yourself and in others,
+you can start to notice
+when you are veering
+toward aggression or
+when someone is veering
+toward aggression, verbal or physical.
+Now that veering is the buildup
+of this hydraulic pressure
+that Lorenz was referring to,
+and it really does have an
+underlying biological basis.
+Now it was some years later
+that the first experiments
+came along, which really
+started to identify
+the brain areas and the
+biological so-called pressures
+that can induce aggressive behavior.
+And the person that really
+gets credit for this
+is a guy by the name of Walter Hess,
+who at that time was working on cats.
+And I know that when say working on cats,
+a lot of people will cringe.
+A lot of people have cats as pets,
+and certainly cats can be delightful.
+Some people like them more,
+some people like them less.
+Most people cringe at the idea
+of doing experiments on cats.
+I should say that these days,
+very few laboratories work on cats.
+Most laboratories that
+work on animal models
+will work on flies, Drosophila fruit flies
+for their capacity to do genetics,
+on laboratory mice, sometimes
+rats, but usually mice.
+And occasionally you'll find a
+lab that still works on cats.
+Back in the time of Hess,
+very few laboratories
+worked on mice, most laboratories
+worked on cats or rats.
+And the reason for that is
+nowadays most laboratories
+use mice if they use animal models
+because of the genetic
+tools that exist in mice
+to knock out this gene or
+knock in this gene, et cetera,
+which can't be done in
+humans or non-human primates,
+at least not very easily
+at this point in history.
+So when I say he was working on cats,
+I realized that probably
+evokes some negative emotions
+in some of you, maybe even
+aggression in some of you,
+what we can do, however,
+is look at the data
+and make use of the data in
+terms of our understanding.
+What Hess did was he
+had cats that were awake
+and he was able to lower
+a stimulating electrode
+into their brain.
+Now keep in mind that the brain
+does not have any pain sensors.
+So after a small hole
+is made in the skull,
+electrodes are lowered into the brain.
+This is what's done commonly
+in human neurosurgery.
+And he was able to stimulate
+different brain areas
+and he was sort of poking around.
+And when I say sort of,
+he was doing this with
+some logical intent and purpose,
+he wasn't just poking
+around in there for fun.
+He was trying to identify brain
+regions that could generate
+entire categories of
+behavior, ALA Lorenz, right?
+These fixed action pattern behaviors.
+Eventually his electrode landed in a site
+and he provided electrical
+stimulation to the cat
+that caused this otherwise
+passive purring relaxing cat
+to suddenly go into an absolute rage.
+So arched back, hissing hair up.
+So called piloerection,
+where the hairs go up,
+animals try to make
+themselves as big as possible
+often when they're aggressive.
+Drooling, maybe even
+spitting, believe it or not,
+cats and other animals can do this.
+And the cat tried to
+attack him or anyone else,
+and anything else, even inanimate objects
+when he stimulated this
+particula brain area.
+So Hess obviously took notice
+of this incredible
+transformation in behavior.
+And the fact that when he
+turned off the stimulation
+of this particular brain area,
+the cat very quickly within seconds,
+went back to being passive calm kitty.
+Now, of course, he repeated
+this experiment in other animals
+because he had to confirm that
+it wasn't just happenstance,
+that there wasn't something
+unique about this one cat
+that perhaps he had stimulated an area
+that had been built up during
+the kittenhood of this cat
+and had been reactivated.
+Maybe this kitten had been
+traumatized early in life
+or scared and reactivation
+of a particular circuit,
+unique to that cat created
+this aggressive behavior.
+That wasn't the case,
+every cat that he looked at
+and stimulated this particular brain area,
+the cat would immediately
+go into an aggressive,
+almost rage type behavior.
+Now, of course we can't anthropomorphize.
+We don't know what the cat was feeling.
+For all we know the cat could be happy,
+although that seems pretty unlikely
+and later experiments done in mice,
+but also in humans confirm that indeed,
+stimulation of this brain area evoked
+not just behavioral aggression,
+but also subjective feelings
+of aggression and anger.
+So what was this incredible brain area,
+or rather, I should say,
+what is the brain area
+that harbored this incredible capacity
+to generate aggressive
+behavior in Hess's experiments?
+Well, for those of you
+that are regular listeners
+of this podcast, you'll
+probably be relieved to know
+that today we're going to talk
+about some new neural circuits,
+oftentimes we'll center
+back on the amygdala
+or the prefrontal cortex,
+and those names will come up.
+And for those of you that
+haven't heard them before,
+don't worry, I'll make it clear as to what
+those brain areas are and what they do.
+But today we're going to talk a lot about
+the so-called VMH or
+ventromedial hypothalamus.
+The ventromedial
+hypothalamus is a nucleus,
+meaning a small collection of neurons...
+What are neurons?
+Nerve cells, and that
+small collection of neurons
+that we call the ventromedial
+hypothalamus is truly small.
+It's only about 1,500 neurons
+on one side of your brain
+and a matching 1,500 neurons
+on the other side of your brain
+and that combined 3000 neurons
+or so, it's not exactly 3000,
+but 3000 neurons or so
+is sufficient to generate
+aggressive behavior of the sort
+that Hess observed in the
+cat, and believe it or not,
+when you see somebody
+who's in an act of rage
+or in an act of verbal aggression
+or in an act of defensive aggression,
+protecting their family or loved
+ones or country, et cetera,
+almost certainly those neurons
+are engaged in that behavior.
+Those neurons are perhaps
+even generating that behavior.
+And next I'll describe some
+experiments that were done
+just recently within
+the last 10 years or so,
+but leading right up until this year
+and even last month that keep confirming
+again and again and again,
+that it is the activity of neurons
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus
+that are both necessary
+and sufficient to
+generate the full catalog
+of aggressive behaviors.
+Now, before I go further to describe
+the beautiful recent studies on the VMH,
+the ventromedial hypothalamus,
+and the important role of testosterone,
+and more importantly, estrogen,
+in the activation of aggressive
+behavior, that's right.
+That's soon to be clear to
+you why that's the case.
+I want to emphasize that the
+ventromedial hypothalamus
+is something that we
+should all care about.
+Why?
+Well, it turns out that many categories
+of psychiatric disorders,
+developmental disorders,
+and psychological challenges,
+things like schizophrenia,
+PTSD, post-traumatic stress
+disorder, depression,
+borderline personality disorder,
+and even certain forms of
+autism can include elements
+of aggression and even violence.
+Now it's certainly not the case
+that aggression and violence
+are present in all people
+who suffer from schizophrenia
+or PTSD or depression or autism
+or borderline personality disorder.
+I'm absolutely not saying that.
+However, it can be a feature of those.
+And it's a well described feature
+in terms of trying to
+understand the constellation
+of challenges that people suffer
+from when they have those.
+So thinking about the VMH goes
+way beyond just understanding
+basic aggression in the
+context of adaptive aggression.
+So, you know, when
+earlier I use the example,
+maternal aggression, that's one
+adaptive form of aggression.
+It also can be pathologic aggression,
+meaning it can harm ourselves or others.
+So keep this in mind as we go forward,
+because later we're going
+to talk about specific tools
+designed to modulate or prevent
+aggression in, for instance,
+people with attention deficit
+hyperactivity disorder,
+and especially kids with ADHD.
+In the meantime, let's return to the VMH,
+this relatively small
+collection of neurons.
+And the reason I say
+relatively small is, well,
+your brain has many hundreds
+of billions of neurons,
+maybe even trillions of neurons,
+the exact number of
+neurons isn't really clear,
+but it's a lot.
+And it certainly is a lot
+relative to the number of neurons
+this 3000 or so neurons
+living in your hypothalamus
+that can evoke this aggressive response.
+Experiments done by David
+Anderson's lab at Caltech
+were really the first to
+parse the fine circuitry
+and to really show that the
+ventromedial hypothalamus
+is both necessary and sufficient
+for aggressive behavior.
+These are important experiments
+and they're worth knowing about.
+What they did was they
+identified, first of all,
+where the ventromedial
+hypothalamus was in the mouse,
+that was pretty straightforward
+to do was sort of known
+before they started these experiments.
+And then they analyzed which
+genes, meaning which DNA,
+which of course becomes RNA
+and RNA becomes protein,
+which DNA and therefore
+which proteins are expressed
+in particular cells of the
+ventromedial hypothalamus.
+And it turns out that
+there's a particular category
+of neurons in the
+ventromedial hypothalamus
+that make an estrogen receptor.
+And it is those neurons in
+particular that are responsible
+for generating aggressive behavior.
+How did they know this?
+Well, they used a tool that's
+actually been described
+by a previous guest of this podcast.
+We had an episode with the
+psychiatrist and bioengineer
+and my colleague at
+Stanford School of Medicine,
+Karl Deisseroth, he and
+others have developed tools
+that allow people to control
+the activity of neurons
+essentially by remote control,
+by shining light on those neurons.
+So in the context of an
+experiment on a mouse,
+which is what David's
+lab did, and these were
+the beautiful experiments of Dayu Lin
+who's now in her own laboratory
+at New York University,
+put a little fiber optic
+cable down into the brain
+into the hypothalamus
+that is of the mouse.
+The mouse is able to move around
+in its cage freely moving,
+even though it has a little
+tether, this little wire,
+it's a very thin wire.
+And that little thin wire is actually
+a little what we call optrode.
+And the experimentalist
+in this case, Dayu,
+was able to stimulate the turning on
+of a little bit of blue
+light and that blue light
+activated only those
+estrogen receptor neurons
+in only the ventromedial hypothalamus
+and the way she was able to do that,
+is she had introduced a
+gene that had been developed
+by our friend, Karl
+Deisseroth that allows light
+to trigger electrical
+activity in those neurons.
+So if any of that is confusing,
+or if all of that is confusing,
+here's the experiment.
+There's a mouse in a cage.
+It has a little wire
+coming out of its head.
+It doesn't notice, believe it or not.
+We know this 'cause it's
+still eating and mating
+and doing all the things
+that mics like to do
+on a daily basis and sleeping, et cetera.
+And the mere pressing of
+a button will activate
+a little bit of light released
+at the end of that wire,
+that light activates particular
+neurons in this case,
+it's the estrogen receptor
+containing neurons
+in only the ventromedial hypothalamus.
+When that mouse is in a
+cage with another mouse,
+a couple of things happen depending on
+what the other mouse is, or we could say
+who the other mouse is.
+If it's a male mouse and you put in there
+with a female mouse, the male
+mouse will attempt to mate
+with a female mouse
+provided that the male mouse
+has gone through puberty.
+He will try to mount and
+mate with the female mouse.
+Now female mice are either
+in a receptive phase
+or a non-receptive phase of
+their so-called estrous cycle.
+They don't have a menstrual 28 day cycle
+They have an estrous cycle.
+And on particular days
+of the estrous cycle,
+they are not happy to mate.
+They will basically
+keep their hindquarters
+away from the male mouse at all costs.
+They'll even attack the male mouse.
+On certain days of the
+estrous cycle, however,
+the female mouse will undergo
+what's called lordosis,
+which is an arching of her
+back and she'll allow the male
+to mount and mate with her.
+So a large number of
+experiments were done,
+but the first experiment really
+was to put the male mouse
+in with a female mouse
+who's in the so-called
+receptive phase of estrus.
+That is, she will allow mating
+and he starts mating with her
+and they go through
+the standard repertoire
+of mating behaviors that
+you observe in mice:
+mounting, thrusting,
+intromission as it's called
+in the mouse sex world.
+Well, I guess I don't know
+what the mice call it,
+but that's what the experimenters call it.
+And then afterwards that
+he will dismount, okay.
+So they observe this kind
+of mounting and sex behavior
+is very typical, but about
+halfway through the behavior,
+Dayu turned on the light to stimulate
+these estrogen receptor containing neurons
+only in the male mouse
+and what she observed
+was incredibly dramatic.
+The male mouse ceases from trying to mate
+with the female mouse
+and immediately tries
+to kill the female mouse.
+He starts attacking her.
+Then she turns off the
+light, the male stops
+and goes back to trying to
+mate with the female mouse.
+So I'm sure all of this was very confusing
+and disturbing to the female mouse.
+Nonetheless, that was the repertoire.
+They would mate.
+She would stimulate these
+ventromedial hypothalamus neurons.
+The male mouse would
+immediately try and attack
+and kill the female mouse.
+And then she would stop the stimulation
+and he would stop trying
+to attack and kill
+the female mouse, return
+to the attempt, at least,
+to mate with the female mouse.
+These are such dramatic shifts in behavior
+triggered only by the
+activation of only the small set
+of neurons within the
+ventromedial hypothalamus.
+And for those of you that think
+that you can watch this sort of thing
+without being disturbed, I
+encourage you to go to YouTube.
+We will provide a link
+where you can see a video
+of this type of behavior.
+It's incredibly dramatic.
+The shift in behavior
+is almost instantaneous,
+occurs within seconds,
+if not milliseconds,
+thousandths of a second.
+The next experiment that she
+did was to put a male mouse
+with this stimulation
+with light capability
+in its ventromedial
+hypothalamus into a cage alone,
+but with a rubber glove
+filled with air or water.
+Mouse, walking around sniffing, peeing,
+which is what male mice seem to do.
+They seem to urinate
+everywhere, that's actually
+an interesting, perhaps
+interesting feature of male mice
+and actually many male
+animals, perhaps even humans.
+We don't know, or maybe we do know,
+basically this has been an
+observed time and time again
+in experiments, mainly
+by Lisa Stowers's lab
+at the Scripps Institute,
+that's characterized this.
+If you put female mice
+into an arena or a cage,
+they always urinate in a very
+small corner of that cage.
+Whereas if you put mail mice
+into an arena or a cage,
+the urinate everywhere,
+they have this obsession
+with spraying their urine everywhere,
+you can transpose that to
+human behavior if you like.
+In any event, Dayu put the
+mouse in the cage alone,
+but with this rubber glove,
+the mouse is walking around
+urinating, et cetera,
+doing whatever is that mice do,
+then she stimulates the activation
+of these ventromedial
+hypothalamus neurons,
+and the mouse immediately
+tries to kill the glove.
+It goes into a rage, attacking the glove
+as if it were another mouse
+or some other animate object.
+But of course it's an inanimate object.
+It's just a rubber glove.
+She stops the stimulation and the mouse
+immediately goes back
+to being completely calm
+or at least not attacking.
+Again, we don't know what
+the mouse was feeling.
+So these are very dramatic videos.
+Again, you can see them
+by following the link
+that we'll provide in the caption.
+If that sort of thing
+is going to disturb you,
+by to see, for instance, the attack,
+one mouse attacking another,
+please just don't watch them.
+I'm not interested in traumatizing anybody
+or you traumatizing yourself, that is.
+A number of different variations
+were done on this experiment.
+For instance, stimulating
+the VMH in female mice,
+as opposed to male mice,
+putting the female mice
+in with other female mice
+or with other male mice,
+no matter what variation
+one carries out, so it doesn't matter
+if it's male with female, male with male,
+female with female, et cetera,
+stimulation of the
+ventromedial hypothalamus
+in a male mouse or a female
+mouse evokes this very dramatic,
+almost instantaneous aggressive behavior,
+physically aggressive behavior.
+Subsequent experiments done by Dayu Lin
+in her own laboratory
+and other laboratories
+have shown that the ventromedial
+hypothalamus connected
+with a bunch of other brain
+areas that are interesting,
+And I'll talk about some
+of those in a little bit,
+but one of them that
+I want to call out now
+is the so-called PAG, the
+periaqueductal gray nucleus.
+This is a large structure
+in the back of the brain
+that houses things like neurons
+that can create opioids.
+We all know of the opioid
+crisis, but these are neurons
+that can produce endogenous,
+means made by the body,
+chemicals that can cause pain relief.
+You could understand why that might occur
+in a circuit for aggression, right?
+Even if one is the aggressor, it's likely
+that they may incur some physical damage
+and they'd want some pain relief.
+The PAG also is connected to a number
+of neural circuits that eventually,
+through several processing
+stations, excuse me,
+arrive at things like the jaws.
+And in fact, stimulation of
+the ventromedial hypothalamus
+can evoke biting and
+aggressive biting behavior.
+Now aggressive biting behavior
+is particularly interesting
+because in humans and
+especially in human children,
+biting is something that,
+while young children might do
+as a form of aggression,
+tends to disappear
+pretty early in childhood.
+And if it doesn't, it's often
+seen as a mark of pathology.
+I have a story about this,
+actually, when I was a kid,
+I went to a summer sports camp
+and I'll never forget this,
+so we're playing soccer and
+in a rare stroke of luck
+or accident, I happened to score a goal.
+I wasn't a particularly
+good soccer player,
+especially not at that stage of my life.
+They later figured out
+that it was just better
+to make me a fullback, 'cause
+I could just wait there
+and do what fullbacks do.
+I was better at taking
+the ball or the person out
+than I was putting the ball in the goal.
+Nonetheless, I, again,
+by chance, scored a goal
+and I was trotting back
+to my side of the field,
+and all of a sudden I felt
+this sting in my back,
+a kid, not to be named, although
+I do remember your name,
+I'm not going to tell
+you what his name was.
+A kid jumped on my back and
+bit me on the top of my back.
+And this of course resulted
+in a discussion and a timeout
+and all the usual things and
+parents I think got involved.
+I don't recall, I didn't
+think much else of it,
+but I recall that this was
+considered especially troubling
+behavior because he bit
+me as opposed to hit me
+or shoved me down or something that sort,
+and it does seem as if
+the tendency to use biting
+as an aggressive behavior is associated
+with a more primitive circuitry.
+Now here I'm truly anthropomorphizing.
+I don't know what this other
+kid happened to be thinking
+or feeling at the time, how could I?
+And I certainly am not going to say
+that biting in every case
+reflects a pathology,
+although I think there
+is general agreement
+in the psychology community,
+in the psychiatric community
+that past a certain age,
+the using of one's teeth to
+impart aggression and damage
+on others is a particularly
+primitive and troubling
+or at least for the observer
+or the person experiencing
+is a pretty disturbing event.
+Dayu's lab has shown that activation
+of the ventromedial hypothalamus triggers
+a downstream circuit in
+the periaqueductal gray
+which then triggers a whole
+other set of circuits of fixed
+action patterns.
+Here we are back to Lorenz
+with fixed action patterns,
+including swinging of the
+limbs, right punching.
+And this wouldn't necessarily
+be controlled punching,
+but also biting behavior.
+So it's remarkable to me,
+at least that we have circuits
+in our brain that can evoke
+violent use of things like
+our mouth or violent use of
+things like our limbs.
+That of course could be used
+for things like singing or
+kissing or eating or, you know,
+gesticulating in any kind
+of polite or impolite way.
+The point here is that neural circuits,
+not individual brain areas
+evoke the constellation
+of behaviors that we call aggression.
+Now, many of you are probably
+puzzled or at least should be
+because I've been talking about
+this highly specialized brain area,
+the ventromedial hypothalamus
+and this highly specialized
+subcategory of neurons in the
+ventromedial hypothalamus,
+these neurons that make
+estrogen receptors.
+And yet the activation of those cells
+triggers dramatic and
+immediate aggression,
+both in males and in females and both
+against males and against females.
+So what's going on here?
+Most of us think about
+estrogen and we don't
+immediately think of aggression.
+Most of us hear testosterone and we might
+think about aggression,
+although other things as well.
+In order to understand this, I
+just want to briefly refer back
+to a conversation that I had
+on a previous episode of
+the Huberman Lab Podcast.
+And that was with my colleague,
+the great Robert Sapolsky
+of course, is a professor at Stanford
+who studied testosterone
+and its impacts on behavior
+as well as estrogen and other hormones
+and their impacts on behavior.
+To make a long story short and to dispel
+a still unfortunately very common myth.
+Testosterone does not
+increase aggressiveness,
+testosterone increases
+proactivity and the willingness
+to lean into effort in
+competitive scenarios.
+Sometimes this is referred to
+as the challenge hypothesis,
+but to make a long story short,
+if people are given testosterone,
+or if you look at people
+who have different levels,
+excuse me, of testosterone,
+endogenously that they naturally make.
+What you'll find is that
+testosterone tends to increase
+competitiveness, but not
+just in aggressive scenarios.
+So if somebody is already aggressive,
+giving them testosterone
+will have the tendency
+to make them more aggressive.
+If somebody however is very
+benevolent and altruistic,
+giving them testosterone will
+make them more benevolent
+and altruistic, at least up to a point.
+Now, of course there are certain forms
+of synthetic testosterones that
+are known in sports circles
+and in other circles to
+increase aggressiveness
+because of the way those particular forms
+of synthetic testosterones work.
+But in general, most of the experiments
+that I'm referring to have
+not been done using those,
+they've been done using
+the let's call them
+the more traditional biological
+forms of testosterone
+or that resemble the biological
+forms of testosterone.
+In fact, Robert Sapolsky described
+a really interesting experiment in which,
+if you look at testosterone
+levels or you administer
+additional testosterone to people
+who are doing philanthropy,
+giving money to organizations
+and so they're essentially doing good
+because these are
+organizations doing good.
+What you find is that
+increased testosterone
+or further increasing
+testosterone makes people
+more willing to compete,
+to give more money
+than the other person
+in the room in order,
+you know, to put it in air quotes,
+"To Alpha out the other
+person," by giving more money.
+So this is an act of altruistic
+or benevolent philanthropy.
+It is not an act of aggression.
+Of course, we don't know what the people
+are feeling underneath all that.
+Again, we can't
+anthropomorphize or project
+onto other people what they're feeling.
+But the point is that testosterone itself
+does not make people more aggressive.
+And in the experiments that
+we've been talking about
+up until now, it's actually the activation
+of estrogen receptor containing neurons
+that makes these animals more aggressive.
+And it turns out there's
+evidence that in certain context,
+estrogen can make people more aggressive.
+So what's going on here?
+Well, what's going on is that
+testosterone can be converted
+into estrogen through a
+process called aromatization.
+There's an enzyme called aromatase.
+Anytime you have word that ends in A-S-E,
+at least if it's in
+the context of biology,
+it's almost always not always,
+but almost always an enzyme.
+So the aromatase enzyme converts
+testosterone into estrogen,
+and it is actually
+testosterone, aromatized,
+converted into estrogen and then binding
+to these estrogen containing neurons
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus
+that triggers aggression.
+I want to repeat that, it
+is not testosterone itself,
+that triggers aggression.
+It is testosterone aromatized
+into estrogen within the brain
+and binding to these estrogen
+receptor containing neurons
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus
+that evokes aggression
+and dramatic aggression at that.
+Now this effect of estrogen
+causing aggression in the brain
+is very robust, so much so
+that if you take a mouse
+that lacks the aromatase enzyme or a human
+that lacks the aromatase
+enzyme, and they do exist,
+then there is a reduction
+in overall aggression,
+despite high levels of testosterone.
+And if people who or mice who
+have the aromatase enzyme have
+that enzyme blocked, well,
+then it doesn't matter
+how much you increase testosterone
+or any of its other derivatives.
+You do not observe this aggression.
+So this runs counter to
+everything that we know and think
+about the role of testosterone.
+Again, testosterone
+increases competitiveness.
+It can increase the desire
+to work under challenge.
+I've said it before, and I ran this
+or pressure tested this
+against Robert Sapolsky
+who's been working on
+testosterone and it's role
+in the brain and behavior
+for many decades now.
+It is fair to say that
+testosterone has the net effect
+of making effort feel good,
+or at least increasing
+the threshold at which effort
+feels bad or unsustainable.
+And it does that by way
+of changing the activity
+or the threshold for
+activation of brain structures,
+like the amygdala and
+other brain structures
+associated with anxiety.
+So the next time somebody says,
+testosterone makes people aggressive.
+You can say, "Ah, no,
+actually it's estrogen
+that makes people aggressive,
+and animals aggressive
+for that matter.
+Now of course it is the
+case that because males
+have relatively less estrogen circulating
+in their brain and body
+than females, right?
+Because they have testes, not ovaries,
+that testosterone is
+required in the first place
+in order to be converted into estrogen,
+to activate this aggressive
+circuit involving
+these estrogen receptor containing neurons
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus.
+But nonetheless, it is estrogen
+that is the final step.
+It is the hormone on
+which aggression hinges.
+And I think for most people,
+that's a quite surprising finding.
+And yet this is perhaps one
+of the more robust findings
+in both the animal and human
+literature, as it relates
+to hormones and psychological
+states and behavior.
+Now, of course it is the case
+that if testosterone is low,
+that a person or an animal will exhibit
+less aggressive behavior, but that's not
+because of reduced testosterone per se.
+It's because of the subsequent
+reduction in testosterone,
+meaning if there's no
+testosterone to aromatize
+into estrogen, estrogen
+will also be lower.
+So we've established that
+it's not testosterone,
+but testosterone converted into estrogen
+that activates these
+circuits for aggression.
+But nonetheless, it's
+still surprising, right?
+I mean, most of us don't
+think about estrogen
+as the hormone that stimulates aggression,
+but it turns out it's all contextual.
+There are beautiful data
+showing that whether or not
+estrogen stimulates aggression,
+can be powerfully modulated
+by whether or not days are
+short or days are long.
+In other words, whether or not
+here's a lot of sunshine or not.
+Now, obviously brain is encased in skull.
+So it doesn't really know
+if there's a lot of sunshine
+out there even though you can
+see the sun with your eyes,
+you can feel it on your skin.
+Day length is converted
+into hormonal signals
+and chemical signals
+and the primary hormonal
+and chemical signals involve
+melatonin and dopamine
+and also the stress hormones.
+So to make a very long story short,
+in the long days where
+we get a lot of sunlight,
+both in our eyes and on our skin,
+melatonin levels are reduced.
+Melatonin is a hormone
+that tends to produce
+states of sleepiness and quiescence.
+It also tends to activate
+pathways that tend to reduce
+things like breeding and sexual behavior.
+In long days, dopamine is increased.
+Dopamine is a molecule associated
+with feelings of wellbeing
+and motivation and the desire to seek out
+all sorts of things, all
+sorts of motivated behaviors.
+And in long days provided
+we're getting enough sunlight
+on our skin and to our
+eyes, the stress hormones,
+especially cortisol, and some of the other
+stress hormones are reduced in levels.
+If estrogen levels are
+increased experimentally
+under long day conditions,
+it does not evoke aggression.
+However, in short days,
+if estrogen is increased,
+there's a heightened
+predisposition for aggression.
+And that makes perfect sense.
+If you think about what short days do
+to the biology of your brain and body.
+In short days, the
+melatonin signal goes up.
+There's more melatonin circulating
+for more of each 24 hour cycle.
+Stress hormones are circulating more.
+Why? Short days tend to
+be associated with winter.
+In winter, we are bombarded
+with more bacterial viruses
+because bacterial viruses actually survive
+better in cold than they do in heat.
+In fact, in my laboratory, we work with
+a lot of viruses and
+bacteria and when we want
+to keep them alive, we
+put them in the freezer.
+If we want to kill them, if
+we want to inoculate them,
+we put them under UV light.
+Like you would see from the sunlight.
+So shorter days are
+conducive to aggression.
+Not because days are short per se,
+but because stress
+hormone levels are higher
+and because dopamine levels are lower.
+Now, here's where all of
+this starts to converge
+on a very clear biological picture,
+a very clear psychological
+picture, and indeed
+a very clear set of tools that
+we can think about and use.
+Under conditions where cortisol is high,
+where this stress hormone is
+elevated and under conditions
+where the neuromodulator
+serotonin is reduced
+there is a greater propensity for estrogen
+to trigger aggression.
+Now, again, I know I've said it before,
+but for males who make
+a lot of testosterone
+relative to estrogen, you
+have to swap in your mind
+this idea that if testosterone is high,
+that means that estrogen is low because
+while that can be true in
+the periphery in the body,
+if testosterone is high,
+there is going to be
+some aromatization, that conversion of
+testosterone to estrogen.
+So anytime you hear that
+testosterone is high,
+you should think testosterone
+is high in the body
+and perhaps estrogen is low in the body.
+But that means that there's
+going to be heightened levels
+of estrogen in the brain and therefore
+increased propensity for aggression.
+In females who generally
+make less testosterone
+relative to estrogen, there
+is sufficient estrogen
+already present to trigger aggression.
+So both males and females
+are primed for aggression,
+but that's riding on a
+context and that context
+of whether or not you get a
+tendency for aggression or not.
+depends on whether or not
+cortisol is high or low,
+and I'm telling you that if
+cortisol is relatively higher
+in any individual, there's
+going to be a tilt,
+an increase in that hydraulic
+pressure that Lorenz talked
+about toward aggression.
+And if serotonin, the
+neuromodulator that is associated
+with feelings of wellbeing and sometimes
+even of slight passivity,
+but certainly of wellbeing,
+if serotonin is low, there's
+also going to be a further shift
+towards an aggressive tendency.
+So if we return to Lorenz's
+hydraulic pressure model
+of aggression in other internal states,
+we realize that external
+stimuli, things that we hear,
+things that we see, for instance,
+someone saying something upsetting or us,
+seeing somebody do something
+that we don't like to others
+or to us, as well as our internal state,
+our subjective feelings of wellbeing,
+but also our stress level,
+our feelings of whether or
+not we have enough resources
+and are content with what we have.
+All of that is converging on this thing
+that we call internal state and creating
+this pressure of either to be
+more aggressive or less aggressive.
+And now we have some major players feeding
+into that final pathway.
+That question of whether or not
+will we hit the other,
+person, will we say the thing
+that is considered aggressive?
+Will we not say it?
+If somebody says something
+or does something
+aggressive to us, will
+we respond or will we be
+submissive or even passive?
+Again, there are many things
+funneling into that question
+and dictating whether
+or not the answer is,
+"Absolutely I'll fight back,"
+or, "I'm going to attack
+them even unprovoked."
+Or if they say this, I'm going to do that,
+or no matter what they do,
+I'm not going to respond.
+These kinds of things are very complex.
+And yet we really can boil them down
+to just a few common elements.
+And I'm telling you that those
+elements are whether or not
+cortisol levels are relatively
+lower or relatively higher.
+Again, relatively higher is going to tend
+to make people more reactive.
+Why?
+Because reactivity is really a function
+of the autonomic nervous system,
+which is sort of like a
+seesaw that oscillates
+between the so-called sympathetic arm
+of the autonomic nervous system,
+which tends to put us
+into a state of readiness
+through the release of adrenaline.
+Cortisol and adrenaline
+when they're circulating
+the brain and body, make
+us more likely to move
+and to react and to speak.
+It's actually what will induce
+a kind of low level tremor,
+which is an anticipatory tremor to be able
+to move more quickly, right?
+A body in motion is more
+easily set into further motion,
+that is, and the neuromodulator serotonin
+is a neuromodulator that
+in general is associated
+with feelings of wellbeing in response
+to what we already have.
+So when we are well fed,
+serotonin tends to be released
+in our brain and body,
+in particular, well
+fed with carbohydrates,
+the precursor to serotonin is tryptophan.
+And indeed there are nice studies
+exploring the types of
+diets, nutritional programs
+that can reduce aggressive
+behavior, both in children
+and in adults and tryptophan-rich diets
+or supplementation with tryptophan.
+So for tryptophan rich diets,
+things like white turkey meat,
+but then there are also
+a number of carbohydrates
+you can look up.
+It's very easy to find foods
+that contain lots of tryptophan.
+Those foods contain the
+precursor to serotonin.
+Now it isn't simply the
+case that eating more foods
+with tryptophan will tend
+to reduce your aggression.
+I suppose it could do that,
+if you ate it in abundance,
+it could make you tired
+and then you're less likely
+to be aggressive, I don't
+recommend that strategy,
+but the idea here is that
+when it's been explored,
+increasing levels of tryptophan
+either by supplementation
+or by food or drugs, prescription drugs
+that increase serotonin.
+So for instance, fluoxetine
+sometimes called Prozac
+or Zoloft or any number of the other SSRIs
+tend to reduce aggressive behavior.
+Now, not always, but in
+general, that's the case.
+Similarly, because elevated cortisol tends
+to shift the whole
+system, again, create more
+of a hydraulic pressure
+towards aggressive states.
+If cortisol levels are
+reduced, well then the tendency
+for aggressive behavior is reduced.
+This is supported by a number
+of peer reviewed studies.
+We'll provide links to some of those
+in the caption show notes.
+And we're going to return to
+these a bit later in the context
+of specific studies that have
+looked at genetic variants
+in different individuals that cause them
+to make more or less serotonin,
+or at least to metabolize
+serotonin differently.
+This is also the case for so-called
+intermittent explosive disorder
+that can often be associated
+with gene variants that control
+how much serotonin is made
+or how it's metabolized or
+how much cortisol is made
+and how much it's metabolized.
+In thinking about tools
+that are a number of things
+that one could consider.
+First of all, there are a
+number of decent studies
+exploring how supplementation
+with the Omega-3 fatty acids,
+which are precursors of some
+of the transmitter systems,
+including serotonin that can
+modulate not directly mediate,
+but modulate mood and emotional
+tone supplementation with
+the omega 3 S has been shown
+to reduce impulsivity and
+aggressiveness in certain
+contexts in things like ADHD
+or in individuals who
+have a predisposition
+for aggressive type behavior
+or aggressive thinking.
+Now that doesn't necessarily
+mean that the omega 3
+fatty acids are going directly
+to the ventromedial hypothalamus
+and changing the activity
+of neurons there more likely they are
+causing or modulating
+an overall shift in mood
+through the immune system,
+through hormone systems that are
+changing the overall tone or
+the propensity for neurons
+in the ventromedial
+hypothalamus to be activated.
+How much omega 3 fatty acid, what source?
+Well, we've talked about
+this on the podcast before.
+You can, of course get omega 3 fatty acids
+from a number of different foods.
+Getting them from whole foods
+is probably the best way
+to do it, but many people,
+including people with depression
+will often supplement
+with one gram or more
+of omega 3 fatty acid per day.
+Some people including myself
+will take them every day
+as just a general mood enhancer.
+I don't suffer from depression,
+but I've found it be
+beneficial for my health.
+And so some people do that,
+and I've talked about before,
+how in double blind
+placebo controlled studies,
+people taking one to three
+grams of omega 3 fatty acids
+per day, typically in the form
+of a high quality fish oil,
+although there are other sources as well,
+algae and so forth, can
+experience improvements in mood
+that are on par with some of the SSRIs,
+the selective serotonin
+reuptake inhibitors.
+And of course, if you're
+prescribed an SSRI
+by your psychiatrist or other
+doctor, please do take that
+and don't cease to take it
+just simply to take omega 3s.
+However you might mention to
+them, and you can find links
+to the studies in our previous
+episodes on depression
+that supplementation
+with omega 3 fatty acids
+of at this one gram or
+more of EPA specifically,
+so getting above that one gram threshold,
+as high as three grams per day
+of the EPA has allowed people
+to take lower doses of SSRIs
+and still keep their mood
+in a place that's beneficial for them.
+And in terms of keeping cortisol
+in a range that's healthy
+and doesn't bias someone toward
+high levels of aggression
+and irritability, that's
+again, going to be set
+by a number of larger
+modulators or contextual cues.
+And I've talked about some
+of those on the podcast,
+but I'll just briefly recap them now,
+obviously getting sunlight in
+your eyes early in the day,
+and as much sunlight as
+you safely can in your eyes
+throughout the day is
+going to be important.
+Again, because of this effect
+of estrogen in long days,
+not increasing aggression,
+however, in shorter days,
+estrogen increases aggression
+because of the increase
+in cortisol observed in short days.
+Another way to reduce cortisol
+was discussed in our episode
+on heat and the use of sauna
+and heat, but also hot baths.
+It turns out that hot baths and sauna
+can be very beneficial
+for reducing cortisol.
+All the details on that are
+included in the episode on heat
+and it's timestamped, so
+you can go directly to that
+if you want to learn
+about the temperatures
+and the various durations,
+but to just give
+a synopsis of that, a 20
+minute sauna at anywhere
+from 80 to a hundred degrees
+Celsius is going to be
+beneficial for reducing cortisol.
+If you don't have access to a sauna,
+you could do a hot bath,
+adjust the temperature
+so you don't burn yourself.
+I think 80 to a hundred degrees Celsius
+is going to be too hot for many people
+if it's a hot bath, whereas
+many people who can't tolerate
+that hot bath can tolerate the sauna.
+So safety first always, and of course,
+but hot baths reduce cortisol,
+hot saunas, reduce cortisol
+of a duration about 20 or 30
+minutes is going to be beneficial.
+And of course, some of you
+may be interested in exploring
+the supplementation route and
+for reductions in cortisol,
+really the chief player
+there is ashwagandha,
+which is known to decrease
+cortisol, fairly potently.
+I should just warn you
+that if you're going to use
+ashwagandha in order to
+reduce cortisol, first of all,
+check with your doctor
+or healthcare provider
+before adding or subtracting anything
+from your supplementation
+or health regimen.
+Of course, I don't just
+say that to protect us.
+I say that to protect you,
+you are responsible for your health,
+what you take and what you don't take.
+Chronic supplementation with
+ashwagandha can have some
+not so great effects of disruption
+of other hormone pathways
+and neurotransmitter pathways.
+So the limit seems to be
+about two weeks of regular use
+before you'd want to take
+a break of about two weeks.
+So ashwagandha again, a very
+potent inhibitor of cortisol,
+but with some other effects as well,
+don't use it chronically
+for longer than two weeks.
+But if your goal is to reduce cortisol,
+let's say you're going
+through a period of increased
+irritability and aggressive tendency,
+maybe you're also not
+getting as much light
+as you would like, and
+perhaps also, if there are
+other circumstantial
+things leading you towards
+more aggressiveness and
+your goal is to reduce
+aggressiveness, that can
+be potentially helpful.
+And in light of all this stuff
+about cortisol and estrogen
+and day length, I should
+mention that there are in fact,
+some people who have a
+genetic predisposition
+to be more irritable and aggressive,
+and there are a couple of
+different gene pathways
+associated with this.
+We never like to think about just one gene
+causing a specific behavior.
+The way to think about genes
+is that genes generally code
+for things within our biology.
+In the context of today's
+discussion, things like
+neural circuits or the
+amounts of neurotransmitters
+that are made, or the amounts
+of hormones that are made,
+or the amount of neurotransmitter
+hormone receptors
+or enzymes, et cetera,
+that shift the activity
+of our biology in a particular direction.
+They bias our biology.
+And in fact, there is a
+genetic variant present
+in certain people that adjusts
+their estrogen receptor sensitivity,
+and that estrogen receptor
+sensitivity can result
+in increased levels of aggression,
+sometimes dramatic increases, however,
+and also very interestingly, photo period,
+meaning day length, is a strong
+modulator of whether or not
+that aggressiveness turns up or not.
+Whether or not that person with
+the particular gene variant
+is more aggressive or not,
+depends on how long the day is
+and how long the night is.
+One particular study that
+I like that references this
+is Trainer, et al, the
+title of the study is
+"Photo period reverses
+the effects of estrogens
+on male aggression, via genomic
+and non-genomic pathways."
+This was a paper published
+in the proceedings
+of the National Academy of Sciences.
+We'll put a reference to
+this in the show notes,
+if you'd like to explore it further,
+but it really points to the
+fact that rarely, sometimes,
+but rarely, is it the
+case that just one gene
+will cause somebody to
+be hyper aggressive.
+Almost always there's
+going to be an interplay
+between genetics and environment
+and as environment changes
+such as day length changes and
+the length of night changes,
+so too, will the tendency for people
+with a given genetic variant
+to be more aggressive or not.
+Now, of course, in the absence
+of detailed genetic testing
+for this particular
+estrogen receptor variant,
+most people, I'm guessing
+you, are probably
+not walking around knowing
+that you have this gene or not.
+Regardless, I think it's
+important to pay attention
+to how you feel at
+different times of year,
+depending on whether or not summer,
+whether or not it's winter,
+whether or not you're
+getting sufficient sunlight,
+meaning viewing sufficient
+sunlight or not,
+whether or not you're getting
+sufficient sunlight exposure
+to your skin or not, whether or not
+you're indoors all the time.
+Generally those things
+correlate with season,
+but not always.
+You can go through long bouts of hard work
+in the summer months when days are long,
+but you're indoors a lot and
+getting a lot of fluorescent
+light exposure late in the evening.
+And perhaps that's when you're
+feeling more aggressive.
+So we have to be careful
+about drawing a one-to-one
+relationship between
+any biological feature
+and certainly psychological
+or behavioral feature
+like aggressiveness, but
+it's, I believe, helpful
+to know that these genetic biases exist,
+how they play out again,
+they shift our biology
+in a general thematic direction.
+They don't change one thing.
+They change a variety of things
+that bias us toward or away
+from certain psychological
+and behavioral outcomes
+and the various things that we can do
+in order to offset them.
+And we described those
+earlier in terms of trying
+to keep cortisol low by
+getting sufficient sunlight
+regardless of time of year, and
+regardless of whether or not
+you happen to have this
+particular genetic variant.
+So earlier I talked about
+how it is testosterone
+converted into estrogen
+that's activating aggression
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus,
+not testosterone itself.
+However, there are some
+studies carried out in humans
+that have evaluated the
+effects of testosterone
+and how levels of testosterone
+correlate with aggressiveness
+in the short term.
+I'm just going to detail
+a few of those studies
+because I think they are
+interesting and important.
+First of all, there is a
+study that has explored
+levels of testosterone in
+men of different professions.
+Now, before I tell you the data,
+I want to be very clear here,
+with a study such as this,
+one never knows whether or not these men
+went into a particular profession because
+they had a testosterone
+level of a given value
+or whether or not the work itself
+altered their testosterone levels or both.
+And I think it's fair to
+assume that it's probably both.
+So be very careful in assuming
+that a given testosterone
+level is causal for
+choosing a particular career
+or that a particular career is causal
+for creating a particular
+testosterone level.
+This study used salivary
+testosterone levels
+as the measure, which to
+be fair is not the best way
+to measure testosterone.
+Typically blood draw would be the best way
+to measure testosterone,
+but nonetheless, provided
+the appropriate methods are
+used, salivary testosterone
+can be a reasonable
+measure of testosterone.
+The different occupations
+that were looked at were,
+and here they just looked at
+men in this particular study
+were ministers, salesmen, they didn't say
+what particular types
+of salesmen, firemen,
+professors, of all things,
+physicians and NFL players.
+And what they discovered was
+that the testosterone levels
+were essentially in that
+order from low to highest.
+So minister, salesman, fireman,
+professor, physician, NFL player.
+Now we could micro dissect
+all the different stereotypes
+and all the different features
+of each of these jobs.
+For instance, we don't know
+whether or not the fact
+that the firemen happened,
+at least in this study
+to have lower testosterone
+levels on average
+than the professors or the physicians
+was because firemen have
+lower testosterone levels
+or because they have a
+much more stressful job
+and their cortisol levels
+are higher than the professor
+or the physician and cortisol
+and testosterone, not always,
+but generally are in somewhat
+antagonistic push-pull mode
+because they derive from the
+same precursor, et cetera.
+Typically, when cortisol is high,
+testosterone tends to
+be lower and vice versa.
+So we don't know what's
+causing these effects.
+And again, this is just one
+study and just six occupations,
+but I think it's relatively
+interesting given the fact
+that each of these professions
+involves different levels
+of competitiveness, right?
+So we don't necessarily
+just want to think about
+the level of physical
+exertion that's required,
+but also the level of
+competitiveness because it's known
+that competitive interactions
+can cause increases
+in testosterone, in
+particular, in the winners
+of competitive interactions,
+a topic for a future podcast.
+Meanwhile, studies that
+have analyzed also again,
+salivary testosterone in
+prisoners, in this case,
+female prisoners, so these
+are incarcerated individuals,
+have looked at levels of testosterone
+according to whether or
+not the person committed
+a non-violent or a violent crime in order
+to arrive in prison.
+And higher levels of salivary
+testosterone were related
+to those that had arrived in prison
+because of conviction of a violent crime,
+as opposed to a nonviolent crime.
+Likewise, when they analyzed
+prison rule violations,
+so an indirect measure of
+aggressiveness, but in this case,
+it was strongly associated
+with aggressiveness
+because they knew what
+the violations were,
+they found were for
+prisoners that had none,
+no prison violations, prison
+rule violations I should say,
+their testosterone
+levels tended to be lower
+than the testosterone levels
+of women that had some,
+even one, or more aggressive
+violations of prison rules.
+We'll provide links to these
+studies in the show notes
+if you'd like to go into them further,
+obviously studies like
+this need to be taken
+with a grain of salt
+because there are so many
+different factors, different
+prisons have different degrees
+of violence to begin with and
+competitiveness to begin with.
+But just as a final pass
+at examining the role
+between testosterone and aggressiveness,
+there was a very interesting
+study from Goetz, et al,
+G-O-E-T-Z published in
+2014, that looked at serum,
+so in this case, blood
+levels of testosterone.
+30 minutes after application
+of a gel-based testosterone
+that goes transdermal
+so that the testosterone
+can go very quickly into the bloodstream,
+and then did brain imaging
+to evaluate the activity
+of neurons in the so-called
+corticomedial amygdala,
+the cortico, the medial
+amygdala is one of the areas
+of the amygdala complex as we
+call it because it's complex,
+it's got a lot of different nuclei,
+you know, know what nuclei
+are, low clusters of neurons.
+It's got a lot of different
+ones, but that medial
+and that cortico medial
+amygdala in particular,
+is known to be associated with
+aggressive type behaviors.
+It's linked up with as part
+of the larger circuit that
+includes the ventromedial
+hypothalamus and other brain areas
+that we referred to
+earlier, such as the PAG.
+What is remarkable about this
+study is that it showed that
+just 30 minutes after
+application of this so-called
+AndroGel, this testosterone that seeps
+into the bloodstream,
+there was a significant
+increase in of course, testosterone
+and corticomedial amygdala activation.
+So testosterone can have acute effects,
+immediate effects on the
+pathways related to aggression.
+And I think this is something
+that's not often discussed
+because many of the
+effects of steroid hormones
+like testosterone, and
+estrogen are very slow acting.
+In fact, steroid hormones,
+because they have a certain
+biochemical composition can actually pass
+through the membranes of
+cells, so the outside of a cell
+and into the nucleus of the cell
+and change gene expression in the cell,
+you think about puberty,
+the kid that goes home
+for the summer and then comes back
+looking completely different.
+Well that's because of a
+lot of genes got turned on
+by steroid hormones like
+testosterone and estrogen,
+but the steroid hormones can also
+have very fast acting
+effects and with testosterone
+in particular, those can
+be remarkably fast acting
+and one of the most apparent
+and well documented fast acting
+effects is this effect: the
+ability to activate cells within
+the amygdala, so you might say,
+"Well, I thought the amygdala
+was associated with fear?"
+Wouldn't testosterone then cause fear? No.
+Turns out that the amygdala
+harbors, both cortisol,
+corticosteroid receptors
+and testosterone receptors,
+and they each adjust the activity
+in the amygdala differently,
+such that testosterone tends
+to activate amygdala circuitry
+for inducing states of mind and body
+that are more action based
+and indeed in animals
+and in humans, testosterone
+application and activation
+of this corticomedial amygdala pathway
+will make animals and
+humans lean into effort.
+This is why I say testosterone
+makes effort feel good,
+or at least biases the organism
+toward leaning into challenge.
+So if you recall, there's not
+just one type of aggression,
+there's reactive aggression,
+which is triggered when one
+is confronted with something
+that sometimes is inevitable, right?
+One needs to fight for their life
+or for somebody else's life,
+but also proactive aggression
+and proactive aggression
+involves activation
+of those go-pathways in the basal ganglia
+and a leaning into effort to overcome
+whatever state one happens
+to be in to begin with.
+And so this is very important
+because it points to the fact
+that yes, estrogen is
+activating aggression pathways
+that are in the ventromedial hypothalamus,
+but it's very likely the case
+that testosterone is acting
+to accelerate or to bias
+states of mind and body
+toward those that will lead to aggression.
+Again, aggression is not
+like a switch, on and off.
+It's a process.
+It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
+Remember that hydraulic pressure
+that Conrad Lorenz hypothesized?
+Well, think of testosterone
+as increasing the pressure
+toward an aggressive
+episode and then estrogen
+actually triggering
+that aggressive episode
+in the ventromedial hypothalamus.
+So if somebody tells
+you that testosterone,
+endogenous or exogenous
+makes people aggressive,
+tell them no, testosterone tends to make
+people lean into effort.
+And if that effort
+involves being aggressive,
+either reactively aggressive
+or proactively aggressive,
+well then it will indeed
+lead to aggression.
+But the actual aggression
+itself is triggered by estrogen,
+not testosterone.
+Now, thus far, we really
+haven't talked too much
+about the social context
+in which aggression occurs.
+And that's because there
+is a near infinite,
+if not infinite number of variables
+that will determine that.
+So for instance, violent
+aggression is entirely appropriate
+at a professional boxing match provided
+it's occurring inside the ring and only
+between the competitors
+and within the bounds
+of the rules of the sport, et cetera.
+However, there are some
+things that tend to bias
+certain social context
+toward being more aggressive
+or less aggressive and not
+always physical aggression.
+And those generally come in two forms
+that many of you are familiar with,
+which are alcohol and caffeine.
+Let's discuss caffeine first.
+Why would caffeine increase
+aggressive impulsivity?
+Well, the general effects of caffeine
+are to increase autonomic arousal.
+The activity of the
+so-called sympathetic arm
+of the autonomic nervous system,
+which is to put it very
+much in plain language
+it's the alertness arm
+of your nervous system.
+That is, it creates a sense of readiness
+in your brain and body and
+it does so by activating
+the so-called sympathetic chain ganglia.
+Again, as I always remind people,
+simpa and sympathetic
+does not mean sympathy.
+Simpa means together, we're all at ones.
+And caffeine tends to
+bias our brain and body
+to activate the sympathetic chain ganglia,
+which run from about the base of your neck
+until the top of your pelvis
+and deploy a bunch of chemicals
+that jut out into the rest of your body,
+activate adrenaline release.
+There's a parallel increase in
+of adrenaline in your brain,
+creating the state of
+alertness and readiness.
+That state of alertness
+and readiness can be
+for all sorts of things,
+not just aggression.
+However when we are in
+a state of increased
+sympathetic tone, meaning more alert,
+such as after drinking caffeine,
+we will bias all those brain
+and body systems, the hormones,
+the chemicals, et cetera that exist,
+toward action as opposed to inaction.
+So put simply, caffeine
+can increase impulsivity,
+no surprise there.
+On the opposite end of things,
+alcohol tends to decrease
+activity in the sympathetic
+arm of the autonomic
+nervous system, tends to
+make us feel less alert.
+Now, initially it can
+create a state of alertness
+because of its effects in
+inhibiting the forebrain,
+our forebrain prefrontal
+cortex in particular
+has what's called top-down inhibition.
+It exerts a inhibitory
+or a quieting effect
+on some of the circuits
+of the hypothalamus,
+such as the ventromedial hypothalamus.
+The way to conceptualize
+this is that your forebrain
+is able to rationalize and think clearly
+and to suppress behavior and
+to engage the no-go pathways
+telling you, "Don't say that mean thing."
+"Don't do that violent thing," et cetera.
+Alcohol initially tends
+to increase our level
+of overall activity by
+reducing inhibition,
+not just in that forebrain
+circuit, but in other circuits.
+Tends to make us more active.
+We tend to talk more
+than we normally would,
+move more than we normally would,
+but very shortly thereafter
+starts acting as a sedative
+by way of reducing
+activity in the forebrain,
+releasing some of the
+deeper brain circuits
+that are involved in impulsivity,
+but also causing a
+somewhat sedative effect.
+And then of course, as alcohol
+levels increase even further,
+people eventually will pass
+out, blackout, et cetera.
+So what we've got with
+alcohol and caffeine
+is we've got two opposite
+ends of the spectrum,
+caffeine increasing arousal and readiness,
+and the tendency for impulsivity
+and alcohol also increasing
+impulsivity, but through
+a different mechanism.
+A really interesting study,
+and I should just mention
+that the title of the study is,
+"Caffeinated and
+non-caffeinated alcohol use
+and indirect aggression at the
+impact of self-regulation."
+So the title is almost self-explanatory.
+This was a paper published
+in the Journal of Addictive
+Behavior in 2016, examining
+how ingestion of alcohol
+that's either caffeinated
+or non-decaffeinated
+alcohol drinks impacted what
+they call indirect aggression.
+And just to remind you what
+indirect aggression is,
+these are not physical acts of aggression.
+These are verbal acts of aggression,
+so embarrassing others or otherwise,
+somehow trying to reduce
+the wellbeing of others
+by saying certain things
+in particular in groups,
+this study examined
+both males and females.
+This was done on by way
+of a college campus study,
+subjects were 18 to 47 years old.
+I guess there's some older
+students on that campus,
+or maybe they use some
+non-students, but you know,
+these days you've also got some students
+that are in their thirties and forties.
+So they have a fairly broad
+swath of subjects included,
+fairly broad racial
+background as well, included,
+not at equal numbers, but
+at least they included
+a pretty broad spectrum of people
+with different backgrounds.
+They looked in particular
+people that ingested
+non-caffeinated alcohol
+drinks at a frequency
+of 9.18 drinks per week, okay.
+Again, there's a college campus,
+not that I encourage that.
+I'm one of these people that I don't,
+I've never really liked drugs or alcohol
+and sort fortunate in that
+way I can drink or not drink
+and tend to not drink.
+But so to me, 9.18, drinks
+per week sounds like a lot,
+but I know for some people
+that might actually be typical.
+And then others who are drinking at least
+one caffeinated alcoholic
+beverage per week.
+And those individuals end as high,
+I should say as 7.87 caffeinated
+alcohol beverages per week.
+So this would be energy drinks combined,
+typically with hard alcohol,
+that's fairly commonly
+available in bars and so forth.
+And some individuals
+drank as much as goodness,
+20.36 alcoholic drinks per week, total,
+some that were caffeinated,
+some that were not caffeinated.
+The basic outcome of this study was that
+the more alcohol someone
+tended to consume,
+the more likely it was
+that they would engage
+in these indirect
+aggressive type behaviors.
+And in terms of the caffeinated
+alcoholic beverages,
+there, the effect was
+especially interesting.
+Here I'm just going to
+paraphrase or I'll actually
+read from the study, quote,
+"With regard to caffeinated
+alcoholic beverage use,
+our findings indicated
+that heavier caffeinated
+alcohol beverage use
+was associated positively
+with indirect aggression,
+even after considering
+one's typical alcohol use
+and dispositional aggression."
+What this means is that
+even though alcohol
+can bias certain individuals
+to be more aggressive,
+and even though certain
+individuals already have
+a disposition toward
+being more aggressive,
+there was an effect that was independent,
+meaning above and beyond both
+alcohol and a predisposition,
+meaning if someone was consuming
+caffeinated alcoholic beverages, they had
+a particularly high likelihood of engaging
+in indirect aggressive behavior.
+Now this makes perfect
+sense in light of the model
+they propose, which is
+this self-regulation model,
+that basically self-regulation
+involves several things.
+It involves engaging in certain behaviors
+and suppressing other behaviors.
+So as described before,
+because alcohol tends to have
+a sedative suppressive
+effect on the autonomic
+nervous system, at least
+after the initial period,
+it's going to tend to
+reduce the likelihood
+that people will engage
+in any type of behavior.
+Whereas caffeine will
+increase autonomic arousal
+and increase the likelihood
+that someone will engage
+in a particular type of behavior,
+aggressive or otherwise.
+So the combination of caffeine
+and alcohol is really acting
+as a two prong system
+to bias people towards
+more impulsivity that
+is less self-regulation.
+So it's really yanking
+your volitional control,
+your ability to engage in
+prefrontal top down inhibition
+over your hypothalamus from two distinct
+and specific circuits.
+By now, you should be
+getting the impression
+that self-regulation is a key feature
+of whether or not
+somebody, maybe even you,
+is going to engage in aggressive speech
+or aggressive behavior.
+And we've talked about a number
+of tools that one can use
+to reduce the probability
+that that will happen.
+I suppose, if the
+context were appropriate,
+you could even take those
+tool recommendations
+and just invert them and
+increase the likelihood
+that aggressiveness would happen.
+But regardless, self-regulation is key.
+And in light of that, I want
+to share with you a study
+that's focused on kids, but
+that has important ramifications
+for adults as well.
+As you probably are already
+aware there are many kids
+out there that suffer from so-called
+attention deficit
+hyperactivity, disorder, ADHD.
+There are also many adults we are finding
+that are suffering from ADHD.
+And there's also an epidemic
+I would say of people
+that are concerned about
+whether or not they have ADHD.
+Now whether or not they have true,
+clinical ADHD or not, is not clear.
+We did an episode all about
+ADHD and tools for ADHD.
+I would encourage you to
+check out that episode
+and some of the diagnostic criteria.
+If you have the opportunity you
+can find at hubermanlab.com,
+as this study I'm about to
+share with you aptly points out,
+there is no objective
+diagnostic marker of ADHD.
+There's no biomarker or blood
+draw or blood test for ADHD,
+whether or not one has ADHD
+depends on their performance
+on a number of different cognitive tests
+and behavioral tests and self report.
+In any event, the study
+I'm about to share with you
+explored how a particular
+pattern of supplementation
+in kids with ADHD was able
+to reduce aggressive episodes
+and impulsivity and
+increased self-regulation.
+And the title of the study is,
+"Efficacy of carnitine in
+the treatment of children
+with attention deficit,
+hyperactivity disorder."
+Even though they put
+carnitine in the title,
+that what they focused
+on was whether or not
+acetyl-L-carnitine
+supplementation could somehow
+adjust the behavioral tendency
+of these kids with ADHD
+and to make a long story
+short, indeed it did.
+There was a very significant
+effect of acetyl L-carnitine
+supplementation on improving
+some of the symptomology,
+excuse me, of ADHD.
+A few details about this study
+that might be relevant to you.
+This was a randomized double
+blind placebo controlled double
+crossover study, this was
+done as an outpatient study.
+So the kids weren't in a hospital,
+they were living out in the world.
+This again was done on younger kids.
+So this was six to six to 13 year old kids
+that were diagnosed with ADHD.
+They received either acetyl
+L-carnitine or placebo,
+and they did all the good practice stuff
+that good researchers do of making sure
+that the placebo and
+the acetyl L-carnitine
+had similar look and taste.
+It was consumed twice daily after meals.
+I should just mentioned
+that acetyl L-carnitine
+typically is taken in
+capsule form or occasionally
+an injectable form.
+Here, they they were
+using this as a drink,
+which essentially the
+same as capsule form,
+but the powders just
+going directly into liquid
+and the carnitine dosage was
+100 milligrams per kilogram.
+So they're doing this
+according to the body weight
+of these kids with a maximum
+dosage of four grams per day,
+the quantity of the
+medication was supplied here.
+I'm reading for a period of
+eight weeks and every eight
+weeks a new quantity of
+medication was supplied.
+So basically this is a
+fairly long term study,
+exploring behavioral outcomes
+and psychological outcomes
+in week eight, 16 and 24.
+They also looked at blood
+things that you could only get
+through a blood draw, so things
+like hemoglobin, hematocrit,
+red blood cell count, white
+blood cell count, et cetera,
+they, these are kids and
+even if it were adults,
+they were quite appropriately examining
+a lot of the physiological measures
+that one would want to
+carry out to make sure,
+first of all, that blood levels
+of carnitine are increasing.
+And indeed they confirmed
+that, but also that
+no negative effects are
+showing up in the physiology
+as well as the psychology of these kids.
+So, first I'll just tell you
+the basic outcome of the study,
+which was, here I'm paraphrasing,
+"Here, given twice
+daily, carnitine appeared
+to be effective and well tolerated
+treatment for a group
+of children with ADHD."
+"They showed significant,
+the abnormal behavior
+compared to these other boys."
+And now I'm moving to
+the table of results.
+They showed significant reductions
+in their so-called "Total Problem Score."
+The total problem score is
+a well-established measure
+of behavioral problems in kids with ADHD.
+And I should say adults with ADHD,
+has to do with challenges
+in social and learning
+environments and how well or poorly
+an individual tends to perform.
+Reductions in intentional
+problems, overall reductions
+in delinquency, and most important
+for sake of today's discussion,
+significant reductions
+in aggressive behavior.
+Now what's especially nice
+about this study, I think,
+is that even though it's
+a relatively small number
+of subjects and certainly
+needs to be repeated
+in other studies and other laboratories,
+that they were able to confirm
+the shifts in L-carnitine
+within the bloodstream of these kids,
+that is they were able to
+correlate the physiology
+with the psychological
+changes, in studies like this.
+And frankly in all studies
+of human pharmacology,
+you have to worry about
+effects that show up,
+not just because of placebo effects,
+but because of so-called
+off target effects
+or related things, totally
+independent of the drug
+or the particular
+supplement that you happen
+to be looking at,
+to put in the words of
+a great neuroscientist.
+Unfortunately, he passed
+away some years ago,
+but he was a member of
+the national academy,
+extremely accomplished
+neuroscientist once turned to me
+and said, "Never forget
+a drug is a substance
+that when injected into
+an animal or a human being
+creates a paper," meaning you
+can see effects of pretty much
+any drug or any supplement
+in most all conditions.
+However, it is in cases
+such as this study,
+where you can quite convincingly
+see that the particular
+feature of physiology that
+you expected to change,
+actually changed.
+And you see a psychological outcome
+that you can gain much greater
+confidence that the changes
+in delinquency, in this
+case reduced delinquency,
+improved attention, reduced
+aggressiveness and so forth
+was at least somehow related to the shift
+in blood physiology and
+levels of L-carnitine
+or acetyl L-carnitine and
+carnitine in the bloodstream
+of these children, as
+opposed to something else
+like L-carnitine going and
+affecting some downstream target
+that you have no knowledge of.
+Now, of course that's
+still entirely possible,
+but I think studies such as
+these increase our confidence
+that things like L-carnitine can be used
+perhaps in concert with things
+like omega 3 supplementation,
+diets that are biased towards
+increasing more tryptophan
+and therefore more serotonin,
+obviously avoiding things like alcohol
+and as it appears from the
+study I just described,
+reducing one's intake or not consuming
+any caffeinated alcoholic
+beverages seems like
+it would be a good idea if your goal is
+to reduce aggressiveness, to
+think about the hormone context
+and whether or not you tend
+to have higher testosterone,
+an estrogen or lower
+testosterone, an estrogen,
+maybe even think about
+the work environment,
+whether or not you are
+existing in a particularly
+competitive work environment
+and even day life,
+time of year and whether or not
+you're getting sufficient
+sunlight, whether or not
+you're avoiding light in
+the evening and so on.
+So studies such as this I think are useful
+because they point to the fact
+that very seldom, if ever,
+will there be one supplement
+or one nutritional change
+or even one behavioral change,
+that's going to completely
+shift in individual
+from being aggressive and impulsive,
+but rather that by combining
+different behavioral regimens,
+by paying attention to
+things like time of year
+and work conditions and school conditions
+and overall levels of
+stress and likely therefore
+levels of cortisol, et cetera,
+that you can use behaviors,
+diet, and supplementation
+as a way to shift that overall
+internal milieu from one
+of providing a lot of
+internal hydraulic pressure
+as it's been called throughout the episode
+toward aggressive impulsivity and relax
+some of that hydraulic pressure
+and reduce aggressive tendencies.
+So once again, and frankly, as always,
+we've done a deep dive
+into the neurobiology
+and the psychology of what I believe to be
+an important feature of our
+lives, in this case aggression.
+I want to point out that in a episode
+in the not too distant future,
+I'm going to be hosting
+Dr. Professor David Anderson
+from Caltech University,
+who is the world expert on the
+neurobiology of aggression.
+In fact, he is the senior
+author on many of the studies
+related to the ventromedial hypothalamus
+that I discussed today.
+Our discussion will touch
+on aggression, of course.
+So hearing today's episode will help you
+digest that information, but
+we are also going to talk
+about other emotional states.
+He is an expert, not just in aggression,
+but in motivated states related
+to sex and mating behavior,
+social relationships of all
+kinds and how those relate,
+not just to biology and psychology,
+but also certain forms of pathology,
+things like PTSD and the
+relationship for instance,
+between anger, fear,
+anxiety, and depression,
+and many other important
+topics that I know many of you,
+if not all of you will be interested in.
+In the meantime, I want to point you
+to his recently released
+and wonderful book entitled,
+"The Nature of the Beast,
+How Emotions Guide Us."
+And again, the author is
+David Anderson from Caltech.
+This is a wonderful book.
+It serves as a tremendous introduction
+to the history of the
+study of these areas,
+the current science and
+discoveries being made
+in these areas, all made
+accessible to the scientist
+and non-scientist alike.
+It's a very engaging read and so much so
+that even though he was
+gracious in sending me a copy,
+I also purchased myself a
+copy to give to somebody
+who is a therapist, and
+I've purchased another copy
+to give to a high school kid that I mentor
+because he's very interested
+in the neuroscience of emotions.
+And I think we are all
+interested in emotions,
+not just fear and some
+of these negative states,
+not just aggression, but
+also the positive emotions
+of our lives.
+And so, "The Nature of the
+Beast, How Emotions Guide Us,"
+by David Anderson is a wonderful read.
+I can't recommend it highly enough.
+If you're learning from and
+or enjoying this podcast,
+please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
+That's a terrific zero
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+at the beginning of today's episode,
+that is the best way to
+support this podcast.
+We also have a Patreon it's
+patreon.com/andrewhuberman
+and there you can support the podcast
+at any level that you like.
+During today's episode and
+on many previous episodes
+of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
+we discussed supplements.
+While supplements aren't
+necessary for everybody,
+many people derive
+tremendous benefit from them,
+for things like improving
+the transition time
+and the quality of your sleep
+and improving alertness and focus.
+And so on.
+Anytime you're considering
+taking supplements,
+there are several key considerations.
+First of all, those supplements should be
+of the very highest quality.
+And you want to make sure that
+what's listed on the bottle
+is actually what's in the bottle,
+which is a problem for any
+supplement companies out there.
+The Huberman Lab Podcast
+is pleased to announce
+that we are now partnered
+with Momentous supplements
+because we believe
+Momentous supplements to be
+of the very highest quality
+of any supplements out there.
+And we've been working
+very closely with them
+in order to direct them,
+to create supplements
+that are individual ingredient supplements
+of the particular quality and sources
+that we would like to see,
+and that relate to the
+science and studies covered
+on the Huberman Lab Podcast.
+If you'd like to see some
+of those supplements,
+you can go to livemomentous.com/huberman,
+and there you'll see
+some of the supplements
+that we've talked about
+on this podcast before
+such as magnesium threonate
+for augmenting sleep,
+things like L-tyrosine
+for augmenting dopamine
+and things like L-carnitine,
+which we've discussed
+on today's podcast.
+Right now, the list of
+supplements and the products
+that are there is only partial to what
+will soon be included in the future.
+So that's an ever expanding
+catalog of, again,
+what we believe to be
+the very highest quality
+supplements available to you.
+For those of you that are
+interested in behavioral,
+nutritional and supplementation
+based tools for neuroscience
+and other aspects of
+your biology, the impact,
+your health and performance,
+we have a newsletter.
+It is a zero cost newsletter.
+It's called "The Neural
+Network Newsletter."
+You can go to hubermanlab.com
+and there in the menu,
+you'll find "The Neural
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+You can just put your email.
+We do not share your
+email with anybody else.
+You will also find
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+that you can download right
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+and decide if signing up is right for you.
+And if you're not already following us
+on Twitter an Instagram,
+we are Huberman Lab on
+both Instagram and Twitter.
+And at both places,
+I describe science and
+science based tools,
+some of which overlaps with the content
+of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
+but much of which is
+distinct from the content
+of the Huberman Lab Podcast.
+Once again, thank you for
+joining me for our discussion
+about the biology, psychology
+and actionable tools
+around aggression, and as always,
+thank you for your interest in science.
+[inspirational music]

Data/transcripts/S8nPJU9xkNw_20241225194748.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1061 @@
+ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to
+the Huberman Lab podcast,
+where we discuss science
+and science-based tools
+for everyday life.
+[MUSIC PLAYING]
+I'm Andrew Huberman,
+and I'm a professor
+of neurobiology
+and ophthalmology
+at Stanford School of Medicine.
+Today is an ask me
+anything or AMA episode,
+which is part of our
+premium subscriber content.
+Our premium channel
+was launched in order
+to raise support for the
+standard Huberman Lab podcast
+channel, which still comes
+out once a week every Monday
+and, of course, is
+zero cost to consumer.
+The premium channel
+is also designed
+to support exciting
+research being
+done at major universities
+like Stanford and elsewhere,
+research that's done on humans
+that should lead to protocols
+for mental health,
+physical health,
+and performance in
+the near future.
+If you'd like to check out the
+premium channel subscription
+model, you can go to
+hubermanlab.com/premium,
+and there you can subscribe
+for $10 a month or $100 a year.
+We also have a lifetime
+subscriber option.
+For those of you that are
+already Huberman Lab podcast
+premium subscribers and you're
+watching and/or hearing this,
+please go to
+hubermanlab.com/premium
+and download the
+premium podcast feed.
+And for those of you
+that are not already
+Huberman Lab premium
+podcast subscribers,
+you will be able to hear
+the first 15 minutes or so
+of this episode,
+and hopefully, that
+will allow you to discern
+whether or not you would like
+to become a premium subscriber.
+Without further ado, let's get
+to answering your questions.
+And as always, I will strive
+to be as accurate as possible,
+as thorough as possible, and
+yet, as concise as possible.
+Our first question
+is about motivation,
+in particular, how to
+maintain motivation
+over long periods of time.
+This was the question
+asked by Martin Zokov.
+He wrote, "I alternate
+between periods
+of two different states
+that vary from a few weeks
+to a couple of months.
+I have extremely high
+motivation in one state,
+where I can do multiple things--
+side projects, making music,
+as well as my main things,
+or really low-motivational
+states, where I can barely
+do anything, and I only look
+for short term entertainment."
+I'm guessing, short-term
+entertainment comes
+in the form of video
+games, social media,
+and just doing generally
+unproductive things,
+as we all do from time to time.
+He goes on to write, "What would
+be the best set of protocols
+to normalize those
+extremes into a more
+stable and consistent state?"
+Well, first off, this is
+an excellent question.
+I say that because it's a
+question that I hear a lot,
+and I think that many people
+are interested in knowing how
+motivated they ought to feel.
+And I think a lot of
+people also feel a lot less
+motivated than they would like.
+Now, here the question
+was, specifically,
+about how to not go from
+these extremes of days
+or weeks of high
+motivation to days
+or weeks of low motivation.
+But before we do that, we
+need to take a step back
+and acknowledge that, just as
+with anxiety, or happiness,
+or sadness, we as human beings
+don't have an objective window
+into how other people
+experience motivation.
+In fact, most of the
+time, we don't even
+realize how we
+experience motivation.
+We just know whether
+or not we feel
+a high barrier or a low
+barrier to leaning into work
+and getting things done.
+In fact, I have
+a good friend who
+did many years in the
+special operations community,
+and then went on to
+the finance community,
+and then now works in health
+and wellness community.
+He has a great mental image
+for all of us to adopt.
+It's certainly one that
+I've adopted, which is--
+for anything in our
+life, we can either
+be back on our heels,
+flat footed, or forward
+center of mass.
+Back in our heels, meaning
+really struggling; flat footed,
+meaning we're doing OK;
+or forward center of mass,
+meaning that we feel as if
+we're really tackling things
+and that we are in
+control of our environment
+or at least to some degree.
+So I place that
+imagery in your mind
+because I'll return to
+it a little bit later
+in the question when
+we get into some
+of the underlying
+circuitry and tools.
+In the meantime, I want
+to remind everybody what
+the basis of motivation is.
+There are many neurochemicals
+and neural circuits involved
+in what we call motivation,
+but a central theme
+of the neuroscience
+of motivation
+is that the neural modulator
+dopamine is involved.
+Now, dopamine does other things
+besides control motivation.
+In fact, it controls
+light adaptation
+in the retina, that is your eye.
+It controls a number
+of different things
+in terms of movement.
+It controls all sorts of things,
+but it is strongly related
+to the motivation pathways.
+How do we know that?
+Well, there are experiments
+on animals and humans, which
+show that even in the
+absence of dopamine,
+or in the presence of very
+low dopamine, I should say,
+people and animals can
+still experience pleasure.
+However, when dopamine
+levels are too low,
+people's ability
+to pursue pleasure,
+or their willingness to pursue
+pleasure, in particular,
+their willingness to undergo
+effort to pursue pleasure
+or any goal of any
+kind, not just pleasure,
+any goal of any
+kind, is strongly
+regulated by the
+levels of dopamine.
+So if dopamine
+levels are too low,
+people simply will
+not put in the effort
+to obtain or reach a goal.
+If dopamine levels
+are adequately high,
+they will put in that effort.
+And if dopamine
+levels go too high,
+you actually see something
+that is pathologic,
+which is that people consider
+every goal a reasonable goal.
+This is often seen in the
+manic phase of a manic bipolar
+person.
+So for instance, somebody
+with manic bipolar
+who is in a manic
+episode, dopamine levels
+are very, very high,
+and they will think
+every idea is a great idea.
+And they will have tons
+of energy to do that,
+so much so so that
+they're not sleeping.
+So obviously, that's
+not what we want.
+What we want, and what the
+question asker, Martin,
+is asking about, is how to keep
+dopamine levels in a range that
+allow us to lean into effort
+but that we don't expend
+our ability to stay motivated.
+And we can really
+trace that back
+to a biochemical/neural
+circuit statement, which
+is-- we really want to
+control our output of dopamine
+and the baseline
+levels of dopamine
+from which that output is taken.
+In other words, we want to think
+about dopamine as a reservoir
+or residing in a reservoir.
+That reservoir can be
+depleted, so it's exhaustible,
+it's depletable, but
+it's renewable as well.
+And one of the best analogies
+that I've ever heard
+was by a previous guest on the
+Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Kyle
+Gillett, who's a medical doctor,
+obesity specialist, expert
+in hormones.
+We did an episode on
+optimizing hormones
+in males with Dr. Kyle Gillett.
+You can find that at
+hubermanlab.com or anywhere
+you can find podcasts.
+Dr. Gillett offered an
+analogy of the baseline levels
+of dopamine as a wave pool,
+and I really like this.
+So if you think about this pool
+full of dopamine-- and here
+we're just talking
+about the dopamine
+that resides in the
+circuits of the brain that
+control motivation.
+But that pool of dopamine
+you could imagine
+is just sitting there not
+doing much of anything
+while you're asleep.
+In fact, while you're
+sleeping, you're
+replenishing those
+dopamine levels.
+I'll tell you another
+tool in a moment
+to replenish those
+dopamine levels.
+But if you were
+to pursue a goal,
+really, really go
+forward-center of mass
+for many, many hours or many,
+many days, in some cases,
+and pursue a goal
+or multiple goals
+and you're really driven to do
+a ton, what you're effectively
+doing is generating
+waves in that wave pool.
+And if those waves
+are too big, well,
+then the waves can't keep
+repeating themselves.
+So think about the
+wave as the motivation
+and the depth of the pool is
+the reservoir of dopamine.
+And if those waves are too
+big, too much excitement, too
+much motivation, too
+much center of mass
+for a given period of time,
+then the water in this wave pool
+sloshes out of the wave
+pool lowering the reservoir.
+And then there are
+really three ways
+that you can replenish
+that reservoir,
+and you want to maintain
+or replenish that reservoir
+if it's been depleted.
+How do you do that?
+Well, first of
+all, quality sleep.
+So when I say
+quality, I mean where
+you're getting enough slow
+wave sleep and rapid I
+move in sleep.
+So for some people, six hours,
+for some people, eight hours.
+Some people might even
+need a little bit more
+or a little bit less.
+We have episodes-- the
+Perfect Your Sleep episode,
+the Master Your Sleep episode.
+We have a toolkit for sleep.
+All available at zero
+cost at hubermanlab.com,
+links et cetera.
+So check those out for
+getting your sleep right.
+But sleep is really
+when you replenish
+that reservoir of dopamine.
+So you cannot ignore sleep.
+I'll come back to
+this in a moment.
+The second science
+supported tool
+that's really been
+shown to replenish
+dopamine, in particular,
+dopamine within the pathways
+that regulate motivation, is
+a practice I've talked about
+before on the podcast
+called non-sleep deep rest,
+sometimes called yoga nidra,
+although, yoga nidra is
+a little bit different.
+There are two studies
+out of Denmark
+that have explored yoga nidra
+in the context of dopamine.
+The first one simply involved
+having people do a yoga nidra
+practice.
+Again, this doesn't
+involve any movement,
+but it involves people,
+potentially you,
+doing anywhere from 30 to 60
+minutes, although there are now
+data showing that as
+short as 10 minutes
+of a non-sleep deep rest,
+a.k.a. yoga nidra protocol,
+leads to dramatic,
+really dramatic increases
+in striatal dopamine reserves.
+So it essentially
+is replenishing
+the dopamine reserve pool.
+This is why I'm such a
+fan of using NSDR, a.k.a.
+yoga nidra, at least once a
+day and especially under times
+when you're engaging in
+a lot of high output.
+And when I say,
+especially at times
+when you're engaging in
+a lot of high output,
+this is a mistake
+many people make.
+They push, push,
+push, push, push.
+They're in pursuit of a goal.
+Then they hit that point
+where they're exhausted.
+Then they start doing
+all the dopamine reserve
+pool replenishing tools
+such as yoga nidra or NSDR.
+The real key is
+to always tap off
+that or refill that
+reservoir once a day
+before it's completely depleted.
+Now, this gets into some of
+the biochemistry of dopamine
+and the relevant circuits,
+but it takes a lot longer
+to restore the
+dopamine reservoir--
+think of it still
+as a wave pool,
+but that reservoir from a
+place of complete depletion
+then it does of
+partial depletion.
+So there's an asymmetry
+in the way this is done.
+So it's not as if you
+drink a glass of water.
+You fill the glass of
+water at a certain rate
+and it fills up to
+a certain level,
+and the rate is constant.
+Think about it as once the level
+of dopamine in your reserve
+is depleted past
+a certain point,
+it takes a lot more effort,
+much more sleep, much more NSDR,
+things of that sort to
+replenish that reservoir.
+Now, oftentimes
+what people will do
+when they start
+feeling less motivation
+is they will start relying
+on things like Adderall,
+Ritalin, some cases
+illegal substances that
+can increase dopamine.
+You know what those are.
+Please don't ever
+lean in to those.
+They are extremely dangerous.
+They really are because
+of their ability
+to potently release dopamine.
+And guess what, deplete
+that reservoir even further.
+We've talked about
+some supplements
+on the podcast that
+can replenish dopamine,
+L-tyrosine in particular.
+Mucuna pruriens is
+actually 99% l-DOPA,
+the precursor to dopamine.
+I don't necessarily
+recommend Mucuna pruriens.
+It tends to make people
+very dopaminergic--
+drive, drive, drive, drive,
+motivated, and then crash.
+Again, depleting that pool.
+L-tyrosine is a
+little bit milder.
+But I really encourage
+people to lean first
+on the behavioral
+tools such as an NSDR.
+And by the way, there's a NSDR
+script, totally zero cost,
+that you can find by putting
+my name and NSDR into YouTube.
+That one works quite well if you
+are looking for a short NSDR.
+There are some other NSDRs.
+You can simply look on
+the internet or YouTube
+and just put NSDR
+and you'll find NSDR.
+Or if you prefer to do
+the more classic yoga
+nidra type approach, there are
+a lot of different yoga nidra
+options to choose
+from on YouTube.
+Many people think NSDR
+or yoga nidra are simply
+meditation with a body scan.
+That's not true.
+Meditation is a focus exercise.
+Most meditations
+are focus exercise.
+NSDR restores energy
+through the dopamine system,
+and newer data are
+starting to show
+that it can actually
+recover lost sleep,
+so if you're not
+sleeping enough.
+But to return to NSDR, a.k.a.
+yoga nidra, as a practice,
+yes, it's been shown in
+laboratory studies, in humans,
+by the way, to restore
+dopamine levels.
+There's another
+study, lesser known,
+from that same group that
+was published in 2011,
+which is entitled Dopaminergic
+stimulation enhances confidence
+and accuracy in seeing
+rapidly presented words.
+This was a cognitive task.
+They explored yoga nedra, a.k.a.
+NSDR, in the context of
+increasing striatal dopamine.
+They already knew that it
+did that, so that's great.
+They confirmed that result.
+But what they also found
+is that doing NSDR could restore
+confidence in cognitive ability
+and performance in
+these cognitive tasks.
+So this is a really
+powerful, zero cost
+tool for re-upping
+or replenishing
+that dopamine reserve.
+So this is something to do every
+day, especially when you're not
+feeling depleted.
+So the question,
+again, was about how
+to make sure that you don't
+go through these cycles
+of extreme motivation and
+then lesser motivation.
+Well, get your sleep right.
+I always say, 80% or more
+of the nights of your life,
+hopefully the nights that it's
+not good, are for good reasons
+that you're enjoying yourself.
+But hey, life happens,
+so 100% of the time
+it's just not reasonable
+to expect of yourself.
+Do NSDR once a day
+for either 10 minutes.
+If you have the time to do
+20-30 minutes or an hour,
+you will see even
+more positive effects.
+It has been shown in
+these research studies
+to replenish dopamine,
+levels of confidence,
+cognitive ability, et cetera,
+and sense of motivation.
+And I said there
+were three tools,
+and the third tool
+that really can
+allow you to keep the
+dopamine, a.k.a. motivation
+circuitry, tuned up
+properly is to really start
+paying attention to
+peaks in dopamine
+and be very careful
+about layering
+in too many things that can
+stimulate the dopamine system.
+I talked about this quite
+a bit in the episode
+that we did on ADHD and
+building and maintaining focus.
+There are many things
+out there nowadays
+that will deplete
+the dopamine system.
+For instance-- and by the way,
+none of what I'm about to list
+is necessarily bad.
+I actually used some
+of these things.
+For instance, caffeine will
+increase dopamine receptors
+that will allow
+whatever dopamine
+is available to be more potent.
+OK, so caffeine is
+great for some people,
+less good for
+people with anxiety.
+Don't drink it too
+late in the day
+because it will interfere
+with your sleep,
+and so on and so forth.
+But many people will
+combine caffeine with music
+that they particularly like.
+Music's great.
+Music can stimulate dopamine
+release, we know this.
+It can enhance
+motivation, especially
+if is the kind of music
+that really puts you
+in the groove for the
+particular type of work
+you're going to do.
+For me, I like to listen to
+either loud fast music or Glenn
+Gould classical piano,
+so one or the other.
+I know what's right for
+me for a given time.
+You'll know what's right
+for you for a given
+time and your preferences.
+But what will happen is people
+will start consuming caffeine
+at higher and higher levels.
+Again, caffeine isn't
+necessarily bad,
+but they'll start doing that.
+And they'll start layering
+it in, or stacking,
+very potent music,
+potent for them,
+plus things like L-tyrosine.
+Again, none of these things
+are terrible on their own.
+In fact, they can
+be very beneficial.
+Sometimes they'll start
+taking Mucuna pruriens.
+Sometimes they'll
+start relying on things
+like Adderall, Ritalin.
+And pretty soon
+what's happening is
+they're getting these big waves
+in that dopamine wave pool,
+big peaks.
+And within a few days or
+maybe even within a few hours,
+they're depleted and
+they're at that low.
+And then, as Dr.
+Anna Lembke, who
+is a guest on the podcast,
+talked about in terms
+of addiction but also in
+her wonderful book Dopamine
+Nation, what happens is after
+those big peaks in dopamine,
+the reservoir, the
+baseline in dopamine,
+drops below its initial level.
+So it's as if the reservoir
+got deeper, and it's emptier,
+and it takes much,
+much longer to fill.
+So to be quite specific,
+what I'm recommending
+is get your sleep right.
+Ideally, every night of
+your life, but for as
+many nights of your
+life as possible.
+That's clearly replenishing
+dopamine and sense
+of motivation.
+Do all the things associated
+with that-- morning, sunlight,
+lack of artificial
+light at certain hours
+of the night, et cetera.
+All of that's in the Toolkit
+for Sleep and other episodes
+I mentioned before.
+Have a practice that
+is research supported
+to replenish dopamine,
+and incorporate
+that practice any time of day.
+Again, NSDR can be done
+morning, afternoon, or evening,
+or middle of the
+night if you wake up
+and you need to
+get back to sleep,
+it can be very
+beneficial for that.
+But do it as a
+consistent practice
+so that dopamine reservoir
+remains tapped off.
+And as a third point, please be
+wary of, or at least aware of,
+these peaks in
+dopamine and the fact
+that layering in a lot of things
+that stimulate dopamine, well,
+that can be wonderful for your
+wedding, birth of a new child,
+going to a sports event
+with a bunch of friends,
+celebrating a big anniversary.
+Yes, please do
+celebrate and enjoy
+the wonderful events of life,
+but please also understand
+and expect there will be a
+lull, a sort of postpartum low,
+maybe not full blown
+depression, that
+follows that unless
+you incorporate
+some tools and practices
+to replenish that dopamine.
+Does that mean you should never
+combine caffeine, L-tyrosine,
+music, and a workout,
+and time with friends?
+No, absolutely not.
+But don't expect to
+do that, and then
+go do an intense bout
+of work, and then get up
+the next morning and do
+it all over again for more
+than a few days before you
+find yourself pretty depleted.
+So rather than give
+you a specific schedule
+of do seven days of this
+and four days of this, what
+I encourage you to do is, for at
+least five days a week-- maybe
+give yourself some time off
+on the weekends, maybe not.
+But for at least
+five days a week,
+get into a consistent
+routine that
+is, I should say,
+neurobiologically consistent as
+well with how the
+dopamine, a.k.a.
+circuits that control
+motivation, work.
+And I assure you that
+you will find yourself
+in a more regular groove
+of focus, and attention,
+and alertness, and
+motivation when you need to.
+And provided you're
+doing all the things
+I described, and
+hopefully paying attention
+to other things like nutrition
+and social connection too,
+of course, you'll find a much
+more even pattern of motivation
+over time.
+One last thing before I conclude
+the answer to this question.
+When I was in graduate school,
+I got some wonderful advice
+from an excellent neurologist.
+His name is Robert Knight.
+He used to be at University
+of California, Berkeley.
+I think he's retired
+now but is still
+active in the
+scientific community.
+And I asked him what he
+was doing that weekend.
+I don't know why this came up.
+And he said, oh,
+I'm going fishing.
+I like mindless recreation.
+I said, that's great.
+You know, fishing is fun.
+I'm not particularly
+into fishing myself,
+but I've done it a few
+times and I enjoy it.
+And he said, the most important
+thing for a science or medicine
+career or any demanding career?
+I said, what?
+I was all ears, super
+hungry to get in the mix
+and do research
+and publish papers.
+And he said, figure out
+how many hours a day you
+can do real work consistently.
+That means five days a week,
+for some people six or seven,
+but five days a week I
+think for most people
+is going to be a bit healthier
+overall for your social life
+and family, et cetera.
+And he said, figure
+that out, and know
+that that number is what you
+should apply over, and over,
+and over again, but update that
+number about every four or five
+years.
+And I said, OK, so does that
+mean that over time I'm working
+more and more or less and less?
+And he said, ah, here's the
+deal-- as you get better
+at your profession,
+you will find
+that you can do more potent
+work, more directed work,
+in a shorter amount
+of time, but that
+does not mean that
+you can continue
+to expand the amount of time
+that you're doing focused work.
+In fact, the opposite.
+So this follows a sort
+of general principle
+that's also present in
+resistance training,
+weightlifting, right?
+The analogy there is
+that people always
+imagine that as you get better
+and better at resistance
+training that you should
+do more and more volume,
+just keep adding volume.
+And there's some
+evidence to support that.
+More volume for hypertrophy
+as opposed to less, et cetera.
+We've done episodes on this.
+However, there's a
+different school of thought
+that works exceedingly
+well, and it
+runs in the exact
+opposite direction,
+which is as you get better
+at controlling muscular
+contractions--
+or let's say for in
+an endurance sport,
+as you get better at regulating
+your stride, and breathing,
+and all those
+things, you actually
+can do more "adaptation"
+stimulating damage
+during a given training session.
+So you want to train
+less not more over time
+because beginners don't
+actually have the ability
+to get much done in a lot of
+time or a short period of time,
+whereas, experts can come
+in there and really nail it.
+So I think that advice that
+Robert Knight was really key,
+and it's something that I've
+followed throughout my career.
+So at one period of my life,
+I won't mention the hours
+that I worked in
+graduate school,
+they were pretty
+insane to be honest.
+I had family members
+get a little concerned.
+I actually lived
+in the laboratory
+even as a junior professor.
+I don't suggest people
+do that by the way,
+but I enjoyed it at the time.
+And the key thing is
+that you figure out
+what you can do consistently
+and still maintain mental health
+and physical health.
+That's key as well.
+And do that, and then,
+every couple of years or so,
+update that,
+typically, by reducing
+the total amount
+of time that you're
+doing that high-potency work.
+I think that, combined
+with the other tools
+that I described
+before for generating
+ongoing dopaminergic circuits,
+keeping that reservoir full,
+ought to give you
+consistent motivation.
+Again, it's an art, and a
+practice, and a science,
+so don't expect to get it
+perfect the first time around.
+But I wish you all luck, and I'm
+certain that these tools work.
+Thank you for joining
+for the beginning of this
+ask me anything episode.
+To hear the full episode and to
+hear future episodes of these
+ask me anything sessions, plus
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+Lab podcast standard channel
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+hubermanlab.com/premium.
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+models but on
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+health, physical health,
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+[MUSIC PLAYING]